Freedom from Liberation
Slavery, Sentiment, and Literature in Cuba
Published on 7. August 2015
Book
Hardback
262 pages
978-0-253-01693-5 (ISBN)
Description
By exploring the complexities of enslavement in the autobiography of Cuban slave-poet Juan Francisco Manzano (1797-1854), Gerard Aching complicates the universally recognized assumption that a slave's foremost desire is to be freed from bondage. As the only slave narrative in Spanish that has surfaced to date, Manzano's autobiography details the daily grind of the vast majority of slaves who sought relief from the burden of living under slavery. Aching combines historical narrative and literary criticism to take the reader beyond Manzano's text to examine the motivations behind anticolonial and antislavery activism in pre-revolution Cuba, when Cuba's Creole bourgeoisie sought their own form of freedom from the colonial arm of Spain.
Reviews / Votes
"This discerning study delves into the life and work of Juan Francisco Manzano (1797-1854), the enslaved Cuban poet and author of Spanish America's only known slave narrative, Autobiografia de un esclavo (written in 1836, first published in Spanish in 1937). . . A valuable contribution to the field of Latin American and Caribbean studies. . . . Recommended."-Choice"...a far-ranging work of extraordinary erudition and critical sophistication. Aching's work powerfully challenges established views of liberation and emancipation. I was captivated from the first page..."-Arcadio Diaz-Quinones, Princeton University
"...a remarkable book that delves deeply into social and psychological intricacies of the enslavement experience that marked race relations in the Americas."-Anibal Gonzalez-Perez, Yale University
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Bloomington, IN
United States
Product notice
Paper over boards
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
537 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-253-01693-5 (9780253016935)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2015
Indiana University Press
€18.18
Available for download
Person
Gerard Aching is Professor of Africana and Romance Studies at Cornell University. He is author of The Politics of Spanish American Modernismo: By Exquisite Design and Masking and Power: Carnival and Popular Culture in the Caribbean.
Content
Introduction
1. Liberalisms at Odds: Slavery and the Struggle for an Autochthonous Literature.
2. In Spite of Himself: Unconscious Resistance and Melancholy Attachments in Manzano's Autobiography.
3. Being Adequate to the Task: An Abolitionist Translates the Desire to Be Free.
4. Freedom Without Equality: Slave Protagonists, Free Blacks, and Their Bodies.
Epilogue
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
1. Liberalisms at Odds: Slavery and the Struggle for an Autochthonous Literature.
2. In Spite of Himself: Unconscious Resistance and Melancholy Attachments in Manzano's Autobiography.
3. Being Adequate to the Task: An Abolitionist Translates the Desire to Be Free.
4. Freedom Without Equality: Slave Protagonists, Free Blacks, and Their Bodies.
Epilogue
Appendix
Bibliography
Index