It’s a detail-rich, firsthand account of the horrors of capture, transport, and slavery, told in the dialect of a man (conversations were transcribed phonetically) who was one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade. The book tells the story of the slave Cudjo Lewis, who was captured in Africa at the age of 19 and brought to America in 1860. Written by Zora Neale Hurston before she reached the height of her fame as an anthropologist and novelist, Barracoon: the Story of the Last “Black Cargo” wasn’t published until 2018 - almost 90 years after it was completed. Adrienne Brodeur – Barracoon: the Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

For Banned Books Week 2018 (September 23-29), the Aspen Words staff share some of their favorites. It made the establishment of this prize all the more mission-critical - to celebrate fiction’s capacity to illuminate vital contemporary issues and demonstrate the transformative power of literature on thought and culture. Books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Handmaid’s Tale, Beloved, and Bastard Out of Carolina, to name a few.

During the research phase, the Aspen Words staff discovered that many of the books we looked to as examples of prize-worthy fiction had actually appeared on banned books lists throughout history. Last year, the Aspen Institute announced the inaugural Aspen Words Literary Prize for a work of fiction with social impact. When Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” was published in 1856, the book was banned by the French government and Flaubert was put on trial for the book’s overt sexuality. In 2017, Angie Thomas’ young adult novel “The Hate U Give,” which sprang directly from the Black Lives Matter movement, was banned in several schools for its profanity and for depicting drug use. Thirty-six years later, this mission still resonates as books continue to be challenged all over the country and the world. Banned Books Week started in 1982 as an annual celebration of the freedom to read meant to draw attention to the harms of censorship.

Madame Bovary instal the new for ios