num_pages: 78
description: The first woman in England to make her living by writing, best known for her novels and plays, Aphra Behn (1640-1689) flourished in the cosmopolitan world of the London playhouse and the court. "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn," Virginia Woolf wrote, "for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."Interweaving the marvelous and the realistic, Behn combines the attractions of three forms - memoir, narrative, and biography - to tell the story here of the courageous, high-minded, and great-hearted Oroonoko, a black man who begins life as a prince and ends it as a slave. The tale is set in Surinam (an exotic locale for English readers) and depicts the overthrow of a hero by a civilization that considers itself superior to him.As Aphra Behn's career inspired women, especially writers, Oroonoko was taken up as a weapon by reformers in the long battle against the slave trade. Over the years reprinted, translated, serialized, dramatized, and imitated, it remains a unique work - a popular tale that introduces powerful themes onto the literary stage.
language: English
title: Oroonoko
titlecomplete: Oroonoko
characters: Oroonoko, Imoinda
genres: 17th Century, Read For School, Africa, Historical, School, Novels, Literature, Classics, Historical Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 14084
places: Suriname
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company