Olaudah Equiano Book Report

Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings is an autobiography about an African American man, Olaudah Equiano, who tells of his story as a slave. The story is not pleasant, nor enjoyable, and by that I mean slavery is not a pretty sight. It’s not something people like to talk about, and I would imagine it is especially hard to write an autobiography about it. In the Preface, Equiano provides a note to the reader stating that he has been accused of lying about his birthplace. He has provided a newer addition to the reader, and to defend what others have said about him. He says this about the new edition, “hoping it may still be the means, in its measure, of showing the enormous cruelties practiced on my sable brethren, and strengthening the generous emulation now prevailing in this county, to put a speedy end to a traffic both cruel and unjust” (Equiano, pg. 5). There are several letters that are mentioned from different people. They are arguing that they highly recommend the book. I think the author did this so the reader can get excited about reading the book, and to look …show more content…
The author did well at portraying Equinao’s character and personality, in a sense that it was easy for me to see that Equinao was a very likable person, had a good personality, and pleased the people he worked for. The book wasn’t entirely about slavery, I mean a lot of it was talking about the punishments and cruelty, but I felt like the majority of it was his time working on ships and his freedom. I wish the author could have spoken more about slavery because I find it very interesting. The vocabulary in the back of the book was very helpful because there were a lot of words that I didn’t know the meaning of. I like that the author incorporated God. Equiano became interested in his soul at a young age, and it made me happy when he sought to know God