The Confessions of Nat Turner
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Average rating2.5
This is a controversial historical novel purporting to tell the story of Nat Turner, a black American slave who led a large slave revolt in Virginia in 1831. The novel attempts to explore the reasons for the bloodthirsty revolt in which Turner and his followers killed a number of white plantation owners before being apprehended, tried and hanged.
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Leave it to Styron to write a first-person perspective narrative of a black slave. If you want to revisit the offensive stereotype of a black man constantly fantasizing about sexually assaulting innocent white women, then go ahead and read it. I have no idea why this book won a Pulitzer.
Styron did not do his homework and his almost apologetic, almost heroic depiction of a mass murderer is, at times, indefensible. Also, this XIX century slave writes and thinks very much in line with what we'd expect from a XX century educated man.
Still, happy to have read it.
