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  • Published: 1 September 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099285564
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $46.99

The Confessions of Nat Turner



A first-person narrative that depicts a good man's transformation into an avenging angel

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

In 1831 Nat Turner awaits death in a Virginia jail cell. He is a slave, a preacher, and the leader of the only effective slave revolt in the history of 'that peculiar institution'. William Styron's ambitious and stunningly accomplished novel is Turner's confession, made to his jailers under the duress of his God. Encompasses the betrayals, cruelties and humiliations that made up slavery - and that still sear the collective psyches of both races.

  • Published: 1 September 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099285564
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $46.99

About the author

William Styron

Born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1925, William Styron was educated at Duke University. He served in the Marine Corps during the last war, and was recalled to service during the Korean War. After 1952, he lived mainly in Europe, before settling in a rural part of Connecticut.

He is the author of The Long March, Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire and Sophie's Choice. He has also published Darkness Visible, the remarkable story of his descent into depression, the collection This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, and A Tidewater Morning. William Styron died in 2006.

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Praise for The Confessions of Nat Turner

Styron has brought to bear on the experience of the Afro-American his penetrating intelligence and his immense skills in creating character, writing dialogue and confronting explosive themes

Financial Times

Immensely powerful and compelling

Spectator

Magnificent...It is one of those rare books that show us our American past, our present - ourselves - is a dazzling shaft of light...A triumph

New York Times