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Twelve Years a Slave cover art

Twelve Years a Slave

Written by: Solomon Northup
Narrated by: Louis Gossett Jr.
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Publisher's Summary

Official Movie Tie-in Audiobook for the Academy Award's Best Picture and Golden Globe's Best Drama winner.

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller.

In this riveting landmark autobiography which reads like a novel, Academy Award and Emmy winner Louis Gossett, Jr., masterfully transports us to 1840s New York, Washington, D.C., and Louisiana to experience the kidnapping and twelve years of bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. Twelve Years a Slave, published in 1853, was an immediate bombshell in the national debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War. It validated Harriett Beecher Stowe’s fictional account of Southern slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which had become the best-selling American book in history a few years earlier and significantly changed public opinion in favor of abolition. Experience our official movie tie-in audiobook for the award-winning motion picture, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Michael Fassbender, and Lupita Nyong'o. This audio edition with an accompanying custom map is based on the research of Dr. Sue Eakin, the nationally recognized authority on Solomon Northup who spent a lifetime authenticating his story.

Hard working Solomon Northup, an educated free man of color in 1841, enjoys family life with his wife and three children in Saratoga, New York. He delights his community with his fiddle playing and antic spirit, and has positive expectations of all he meets. When he is deceived by “circus promoters” to accompany them to a musical gig in the nation’s capital, his joyful life takes an unimaginable turn. He awakens in shackles to find he has been drugged, kidnapped and bound for the slave block in D.C.

After Solomon is shipped 1,000 miles to New Orleans, he is assigned his slave name and quickly learns that the mere utterance of his true origin or rights as a freeman are certain to bring severe punishment or death. While he endures the brutal life of a slave in Louisiana’s isolated Bayou Boeuf plantation country, he must learn how to play the system and plot his escape home.

For 12 years, his fine mind captures the reality of slavery in stunning detail, as we learn about the characters that populate plantation society and the intrigues of the bayou – from the collapse of a slave rebellion resulting in mass hangings due to traitorous slave Lew Cheney, to the tragic abuse of his friend Patsey because of Mrs. Epps’ jealousy of her husband’s sexual exploitation of his pretty young slave.

When Solomon finally finds a sympathizing friend who risks his life to secret a letter to the North, a courageous rescue attempt ensues that could either compound Solomon’s suffering, or get him back to the arms of his family.

AUTHENTICATION: Northup’s harrowing first-hand account was authenticated from decades of research by Dr. Sue Eakin, who rediscovered the original narrative as a 12-year old in 1931 and made it her life’s work.

For additional audio clips, background info and images, see our website at www.12YearsASlaveBook.com.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2013 Eakin Films & Publishing (P)2013 Eakin Films & Publishing

What the critics say

“...Gossett infuses the words with a quiet, seething power." ( AudioFile, 2013)
“I can never read his account of his days in slavery, of his independence of spirit, of his determination to be free…without believing that it would make a difference in today's world if our contemporaries knew of such a man as Solomon Northup." (Dr. John Hope Franklin, past president of the American Historical Association, best-selling author, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom, nation's highest civilian honor)
"[T]he extraordinary narrative of Solomon Northup is the most remarkable book that was ever issued from the American press." ( Detroit Tribune, original 1853 review) "Its truth is far greater than fiction." (Frederick Douglass, famous writer, former slave and abolitionist) "It will be read extensively, both at the North and the South." ( New York Tribune, 1853, published by Horace Greeley)

What listeners say about Twelve Years a Slave

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Good book; poorly performed.

I read the book and saw the movie. I was looking forward to listening to the Audible version as books are “brought” to life by the reader when “performing” the parts of various characters. The reader did not do that in this case. I didn’t need someone to read the book to me.

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Unimaginable sorrow with freedom lost.

having often imagined the horror of being taken from freedom and being sold into slavery, I find it surreal how this man could tell his tale so lovingly... we're it me, I'm certain I would have spiked it in hatred and damnation to the villans at every turn. the author's obvious forgiveness for the evils done to him are no doubt the source of his own personal peace. Praise God for grace in all circumstances, though so often we just don't know how such evil can prevail.

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