Book cover of Nat Turner, Black Prophet: A Visionary History

Book description

"Stellar . . . Spectacular . . . [A] heartfelt, painstaking account." ―Nell Irvin Painter, The Washington Post

"An extraordinary collaboration . . . A profound achievement . . . Downs is a superb, even lyrical writer." ―David W. Blight, Los Angeles Times

A Times Literary Supplement Book of the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Nat Turner, Black Prophet as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This new take on radical Black abolitionist Nat Turner surprised—and enlightened me. If you’ve always thought of Turner as no more than a violent insurrectionist hellbent on the massacre of whites in southside Virginia, think again. There was much more to him, I learned in this out-of-the-box biography of the man both vilified and idolized since the infamous 1831 killing spree.

He was immortalized in the fictionized best-seller Nat Turner’s Rebellion, but this new take shows that truth can be stranger than fiction. I learned that Turner, rather than a revolutionary motivated solely by hate, drew heavily on the…

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