| Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels Contributor(s): Young, Kevin (Author) |
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ISBN: 0375711619 ISBN-13: 9780375711619 Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group OUR PRICE: $17.96 Product Type: Paperback Published: September 2012 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - African American - History | United States - 19th Century |
| Dewey: 811.54 |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 6" W x 9" (0.75 lbs) 272 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Chronological Period - 19th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Now in paperback, a haunting chorus of voices that tells the story of the captivity, education, language, hopes, dreams, and fight for freedom, of the African Americans abducted in the Amistad rebellion. Based on the 1840 mutiny on board the slave ship Amistad, Ardency begins with Buzzard, a sequence of poems told in the voice of the interpreter for the captive rebels, who were jailed in New Haven. In Correspondence, we encounter the remarkable letters to John Quincy Adams and others that the captives wrote from jail. The book culminates in Witness, a libretto chanted by Cinque, the rebel leader, who yearns for his family and freedom while eloquently evoking the Amistads' conversion and life in America. As Young conjures this array of characters, interweaving the liberation cry of Negro spirituals and the indoctrinating wordplay of American primers, he delivers his signature songlike immediacy at the service of an epic built on the ironies, violence, and virtues of American history. |