Twelve Years a Slave (Film Tie-in)

Solomon Northup

Dec 2013 · Penguin UK

About this eBook

'I could not believe that I had never heard of this book. It felt as important as Anne Frank's diary, only published nearly a hundred years before' - Steve McQueen, director of the Academy Award-winning film of Solomun Northup's powerful memoir

Solomon Northup is a free man, living in New York. Then he is kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Drugged, beaten, given a new name and transported away from his wife and children to a Louisiana cotton plantation, Solomon will die if he reveals his true identity. This is the searing true story of his twelve years as a slave: the endless brutality, daily humiliations and constant fear, but also the small ways in which he and his fellow men try to survive.

Twelve Years a Slave is a unique, unflinching record of slavery from the inside, and the incredible account of one man whose life was ripped from him - and who fought to get it back.

'A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's "many thousands gone" who retained his humanity in the bowels of degradation' - Saturday Review

Ratings and reviews

If you're coming from the movie to the book, or perhaps reading as a result of heating about the film, then just be warned that it's not written like a Hollywood script; it's an account of parts of a twelve year life in slavery written in a prose you will likely be unfamiliar with. However, in benefit of that it's a worthwhile read of a view into parts of American history that seems so unbelievable. I can't pretend to know anything of modern slavery but I think it will make me consider the subject in future

This really takes you back to a day where slaves were treated in a way that you wouldn't treat an animal today, without being punished severely. A great read, if a little difficult to get into as it's written back in the mid 1800s and therefore the language and way of writing is somewhat different to what we're used to nowadays.

This is a revealing and personal account of a dark period in human history. I am grateful for the opportunity to read Soloman's journal in its original form. I was deeply moved by the injustices he suffered at the hands of greedy, cruel and immoral men.

About the author

Solomon Northup was a free man kidnapped into slavery in Washington, D.C. in 1841. Shortly after his escape, he published his memoirs to great acclaim and brought legal action against his abductors, though they were never prosecuted. The details of his life thereafter are unknown, but he is believed to have died in Glen Falls, New York, around 1863.