In 1927 Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau Alabama just outside Mobile to interview
eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men women and children transported from
Africa to America as slaves Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this
integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of
the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was
outlawed in the United States. In 1931 Hurston returned to Plateau the African-centric
community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship.
Spending more than three months there she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his
life. During those weeks the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches
and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past--memories from his
childhood in Africa the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by
American slavers the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100
other souls aboard the Clotilda and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil
War. Based on those interviews featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular and written from Hurston's
perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent
American authors of the twentieth-century Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of
slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that
continues to haunt us all black and white this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable
contribution to our shared history and culture.--Publisher's website.
