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WITH A FOREWORD BY DAVID OLUSOGA

This is the extraordinary story of Olaudah Equiano: Child slave. Soldier. Free man. Traveller. Abolitionist. Celebrity.

Kidnapped as a child into slavery, Equiano spent the rest of his life fighting for his freedom. After years of slavery, working on ships that carried him across empire and into battle during the Seven Years War, he eventually managed to purchase his own freedom, and went on to become a leading figure in the early abolition movement.

Published to coincide with the first attempt to abolish the slave trade in 1789, Equiano's remarkable autobiography became a sensation and turned its author into the most famous Black person in Georgian Britain.

As vivid and powerful today as it was in 1789, Equiano's story is the most significant autobiographical account of slavery to emerge from Britain's centuries as a slave trading power. In this JM Classics edition, leading historian David Olusoga's introduction sets Equiano's book in its historical context, helping us to understand the man himself.