- Hardcover: 230 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Fiction; First Edition edition (Jan 15 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 088001623X
- ISBN-13: 978-0880016230
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 431 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In his lyrical third novel, D'Aguiar (Whitbread Award winner for The Longest Memory) fictionalizes a horrifying incident that occurred in 1781. The Zong, a slave ship headed home to England, is packed to capacity with Africans. Shrewd and remote Captain Cunningham considers those 408 people chained below deck to be merely profitable cargo. But his first mate, Kelsal, has more ambivalent feelings about the captives because Africans once saved his life. When illness spreads among the slaves, Cunningham orders the crew to throw the sick overboard so the ship can collect insurance money for the loss. Mintah, an educated African who speaks English and who recognizes Kelsal from her days as one of his caregivers, stuns and frightens the crew with her heroic protests. Beaten and thrown into the sea, she manages to haul herself back onto the ship, where her influence both inspires and divides the remaining slaves. A trial is held upon the ship's arrival to determine liability for the 131 missing slaves. The crew is nearly absolved of responsibility until Mintah's journal is produced, which directly contradicts the crew's accounts. The final words belong to Mintah, whose first-person account of her life after the Zong is troubling and dramatic. D'Aguiar's spare prose starkly reveals the inner lives of Kelsal and Mintah and the crew members as they face the moral weight of this atrocity. D'Aguiar's imagery is haunting, his characters' thoughts complex and the mood darkly compelling. Comparisons to Amistad are inevitable, but D'Aguiar's accounting of the moral wages of the slave trade is a unique work of fiction that stands on its own merits. Agent, Bruce Hunter at David Higham Associates.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
By turns dreamlike and almost unbearably gritty, D'Aguiar's (Dear Future, LJ 8/96) poignant take on a historic event transports the reader deep into the very timbers of the slave ship Zong, en route from Africa. The ship runs off course, losing several sailors and slaves to disease before its captain makes the shocking decision to throw sick slaves overboard. Disgusted with their orders but either loyal or cowardly, the crew disposes of 131 sick Africans and one bold, articulate young slave woman, Mintah, who dares to object to the proceedings. Remarkably, Mintah survives the sea and climbs back on board the Zong, hiding in food stores and protected by the kind, slow-witted cook's assistant. She becomes the voice of hope and resistance. Upon the Zong's arrival in the Americas, the "destruction of stock" becomes the subject of a court case in which only Mintah's words consider its true horror. This gripping, horrifying, poetic novel is highly recommended for all libraries.?Janet Ingraham Dwyer, Worthington P.L., Columbus, OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Everything about slavery is cruel, so the drama is implicit,
By
This review is from: Feeding the Ghosts (Paperback)
Eventhough it is a short novel the author could have done a much better work sticking to the essence of the drama and the court proceedings about the conduct of the captain of the vessel. But he choose to dwell a little bit to much on some philosophical wonderings of Mhirta which loosen the tension and did not add much to the development of the work.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews) 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grand storytelling!!,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Feeding the Ghosts (Hardcover)
This work is the best story expounding the imhumanity the peddling in flesh trade produced. By providing a portrait of victim and victimizer, Feeding the Ghost shows the banality humanity faced when coupled with the bottomline. I really, enjoyed this book and suggest that everyone read this story. Moreover, the imagery of the African coast, Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean folk culture leap off of the page into one's imagination. What more can I say than kudos to Fred D'Aguair. And strongly suggest that everyone read this vivid portrayal of life not so long ago.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Imagery Juxtaposed with the Middle Passage,
By M. Kim - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Feeding the Ghosts (Paperback)
D'Aguiar takes the creative license to create a story about a woman Mintah on the Middle Passage of the slave trade. When disease starts affecting those on board the slave ship Zong, the captain orders all the sick to be thrown into the sea. The narrative then closely follows Mintah as she survives being thrown overboard, climbs back on to the ship, lives secretly in the supply room with the help of Simon, the young cook's aid, and writes her experiences in a journal. D'Aguiar's language throughout the novel is simplistic yet so effective in describing the extraordinary events that surround Mintah, our heroine, that it is impossible to not be engaged with the storyline.The only time that I felt that the narrative was jarred was in Part 2. This is the only part when D'Aguiar moves away from Mintah's perspective. Perhaps other reader consider this section to be necessary to the progression of the plot. I just wished the transition from the ship Zong to the court room. An image manipulated in the novel is the sea. It comes to represent a conqueror, a friend, or an enemy. Its implications as a witness to and an embracer of the jettisoning of the Africans is thought-provoking and incredibly compelling. Read this book. It will make you cry over something, whether it be the subject matter, Mintah's relationship with Simon, or just the lovely diction and imagery conjured by D'Aguiar.
4.0 out of 5 stars
African diaspora,
By E. A. Speed "whitechocolate" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Feeding the Ghosts (Hardcover)
D'Aguiar has written a very good version of what occurred on the slave ships as the Atlantic was crossed on the way to the Americas. He has made the reader experience the horrors as if they were there to see the horrendous events that happened. It is a useful selection in the library of a reader who is interested in the African diaspora.
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