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Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
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Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House
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Editor reviews
As her multiple awards and nominations can attest, narrator Robin Miles is adept at creating an intimate connection with listeners. For Harriet Wilson's semi-autobiographical novel about precocious little girl Frando, who is given away to servitude at age six, Miles once more eases her way into listeners' hearts with her elegant and moving performance.
Frando inspires both sympathy and anger as she endures deprivation and isolation as an indentured servant in antebellum New Hampshire, revealing the pervasiveness of racism even in the supposedly free north. Miles gives Frando a determined, spirited voice and never slips into sentimentality or hyperbole, instead letting her quiet intensity command listeners' empathy and attention.
Summary
This is the autobiographical novel by Harriet Wilson, the first African-American to publish a novel in North America. Originally published in 1859, it was rediscovered in 1982.
The novel begins as Frado, a six-year-old mulatto, is abandoned by her white mother. While serving the Bellmont family as an indentured servant, she is treated cruelly. Frado earns her freedom at the age of 18 but has many difficulties earning a living on her own. She marries Tom, a fugitive slave and a lecturer for the Abolitionist Movement. Frado has a baby, but is again abandoned and must find a way to support herself. At the end of the novel, the author appeals in her own voice for sales of her book.