The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings

By Olaudah Equiano

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, History

This Penguin Classics volume (2003) collects Olaudah Equiano's 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative, with other writings. Equiano describes being kidnapped as a child in West Africa, the Middle Passage, and his years enslaved to a British naval officer and a Quaker merchant, during which he sailed widely and learned to read. He tells how he bought his freedom, became a Christian and settled in England, where his book became an important text for British abolitionists.

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• Ryan Holiday: “In the last few weeks I read biographies or memoirs of: Fidel Castro, Toussaint Louverture, PT Barnum, Martin Luther, Langston Hughes, Arnold Rothstein, Wyatt Earp, George Washington, Seneca, Sammy Davis Jr, ... Da Vinci, ... Olaudah Equiano, and Joe Biden.”