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

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"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…

From Eugene's list on slavery and the Civil War era.

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Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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