num_pages: 209
description: In this savage parable of the African American experience, Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave eking out a living in New Orleans in 1830, hops aboard a square rigger to evade the prim Boston schoolteacher who wants to marry him. But the Republic turns out to be a slave clipper bound for Africa. Calhoun, whose master educated him as a humanist, becomes the captain's cabin boy, and though he hates himself for acting as a lackey, he's able to help the African slaves recently taken aboard to stage a revolt before the rowdy, drunken crew can spring a mutiny. Middle Passage won the 1990 National Book Award.
language: English
title: Middle Passage
titlecomplete: Middle Passage
genres: Fiction, Historical, Africa, School, Literature, Classics, Novels, Historical Fiction, Race, African American
ratings_count: 4993
awards: awardedAt: 631180800000
name: National Book Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 631180800000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction
publisher: Antheneum