Overview
Ganadora del Premio Pulitzer 2004 y reconocida como el mejor libro de ficción del siglo XXI por el New York Times, The Known Worl, de Edward P. Jones, es una novela debut de una profundidad emocional asombrosa y un poder literario inigualable, y sigue demostrando su importancia en el canon literario estadounidense.
A través de sorprendentes giros e imprevistos de la vida en la Virginia de los años previos a la Guerra Civil, Henry Townsend, granjero, fabricante de botas y antiguo esclavo, se convierte en propietario de su propia plantación, así como de sus propios esclavos. Cuando muere, su viuda Caldonia sucumbe a un profundo dolor, y las cosas empiezan a desmoronarse en su plantación: los esclavos empiezan a escapar al amparo de la noche y las familias que antes habían encontrado el amor bajo el yugo de la esclavitud empiezan a traicionarse unas a otras. Más allá de la casa de los Townsend, el mundo conocido también se desmorona: los patrulleros blancos mal pagados observan cómo los «traficantes» de esclavos venden a los negros libres para esclavizarlos, y corren rumores sobre rebeliones de esclavos que hacen que las familias blancas se enfrenten a los esclavos que les habían servido durante años.
Obra maestra, ambiciosa, valiente y luminosamente escrita, The Known World entrelaza a la perfección las vidas de los liberados y los esclavizados, y nos permite a todos comprender mejor el perdurable mundo multidimensional creado por la esclavitud como institución. The Known World no sólo marca el regreso de un escritor extraordinariamente dotado, sino de una notable contribución al canon de la literatura clásica estadounidense.
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Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize Award and recognized as the best book of fiction in the 21st century by the New York Times, Edward P. Jones's The Known World is a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power and continues to show its importance to the American literary canon.
Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation—as well his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave “speculators” sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.
An ambitious, courageous, luminously written masterwork, The Known World seamlessly weaves the lives of the freed and the enslaved—and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. The Known World not only marks the return of an extraordinarily gifted writer, but of a remarkable contribution to the canon of American classic literature.
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