''The Confessions of Nat Turner'' is a 1968
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
-winning novel by American writer
William Styron. Presented as a first-person narrative by historical figure Nat Turner, the novel concerns
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, the rebels, made up of enslaved African Americans, killed b ...
in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
in 1831. It is a fictional retelling based on ''The Confessions of Nat Turner: The Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia'', a first-hand account of Turner's confessions published by a local lawyer,
Thomas R. Gray, in 1831.
''
Time Magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...
'' included the novel in its ''TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005''.
Historical background
The novel is based on an extant document, Turner's "confession" to his white lawyer,
Thomas R. Gray.
In the historical confessions, Turner claims to have been divinely inspired.
Some scholars believe that mental illness may have driven Turner's actions. Others believe Turner was moved by religiosity.
References
Further reading
*
Clarke, John Henrik, ed. ''William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond''. Boston: Beacon Press, 1968.
*
Genovese, Eugene D.
Eugene Dominic Genovese (May 19, 1930 – September 26, 2012) was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and ...
br>
"The Nat Turner Case" review of ''William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond'', ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'', 11.4 (September 12, 1968).
* Mellard, James M. "This Unquiet Dust: The Problem of History in Styron's ''The Confessions of Nat Turner''", ''Mississippi Quarterly'', 36.4 (Fall 1983), pp. 525–43.
* Ryan, Tim A. "From Tara to Turner: Slavery and Slave Psychologies in American Fiction and History, 1945–1968", ''Calls and Responses: The American Novel of Slavery since Gone with the Wind''. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008.
External links
Photos of the first edition of The Confessions of Nat Turner
{{DEFAULTSORT:Confessions of Nat Turner, The
American historical novels
1967 American novels
Novels about American slavery
Cultural depictions of Nat Turner
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction–winning works
Novels by William Styron
Fiction set in 1831
Novels set in the 1830s
Novels set in Virginia
Random House books
Books with cover art by Paul Bacon
First-person narrative novels
Race-related controversies in literature