Overview

The masterful, Pulitzer Prize-winning literary epic about the painful and complex realities of slave life on a Southern plantation. An utterly original exploration of race, trust and the cruel truths of human nature, this is a landmark in modern American literature. Henry Townsend, previously enslaved and now a farmer and bootmaker, is one of the few Black masters in the South. Mentored by William Robbins, one of the most powerful men in Manchester County, Virginia, Townsend has built his plantation with ambition and discipline, while grappling with his place in a society defined by racial oppression. When Townsend dies unexpectedly, the established order falls into disarray. As disruption reverberates throughout the community, a series of events uncovers an intricate web of relationships, power imbalances and betrayals. An astonishing literary epic exploring race, trust and the cruel truths of human nature, Edward P. Jones ’ Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Known World is a landmark in modern American literature

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9780008706142

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Reviews

'A very moving epic' Andrea Levy, author of Small Island 'Majestic …[its] cumulative effect devastates' Daily Telegraph 'A moral epic, skilfully and sensitively constructed' Sunday Times 'A powerful experience … rich in character and plot' Guardian 'A masterpiece' Time Magazine ‘Jones immerses us in a world of slaves and slave owners with unerring mastery' Geoff Dyer, Telegraph Books of the Year An engrossing epic tale. The indications of what's to come mean a sense of doom hang over this beautifully crafted tale, people with luminous characters. It's a moving look at the moral complexities of slavery' Metro ‘The Known World is an achievement of epic scope and architectural construction, which nonetheless reads like a string of folk tales told by someone slyly watching for your reaction – tales told by a conjurer who distracts you so well that you never know what hit you’ New York Times ‘The best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years.’ Washington Post ‘Jones has woven nothing less than a tapestry of slavery, an artifact as vast and complex as anything to be found in the Louvre. Every thread is perfectly in place … The first paragraph exquisitely connects, nearly 400 pages later, with the last. Against all the evidence to the contrary that American fiction has given us over the past quarter-century, The Known World affirms that the novel does matter, that it can still speak to us as nothing else can’ Houston Chronicle

Author Information

Edward P. Jones won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was nominated for the National Book Award for his debut collection of stories, Lost in the City.

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