Conjure Woman (new edition)

Book : Foundations of Black Science Fiction

by Charles W. Chesnutt

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; African American Historical; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

An early slave narrative, a skilfully woven satire on the stereotypes of plantation life and the apparently beneficent white owner. Told as a series of gentle fables, in the style of Aesop.

Featuring a new introduction for this new edition, The Conjure Woman is probably Chesnutt's most powerful work, a collection of stories set in post-war North Carolina. The main character is Uncle Julius, a former slave, who entertains a white couple from the North with fantastic tales of antebellum plantation life. Julius tells of supernatural phenomenon, hauntings, transfiguration, and conjuring, which were typical of Southern African-American folk tales at the time. Uncle Julius tells the stories in a way that speaks beyond his immediate audience, offering stories of slavery and inequality that are, to the enlightened reader, obviously wrong. The tales are fabulistic, like those of Uncle Remus or Aesop, with carefully crafted allegories on the psychological and social effects of slavery and racial injustice.

Release date: April 25, 2023

Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing

Print pages: 224