The Known World

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The Known World
First edition cover
Author Edward P. Jones
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Historical, Novel
Publisher Amistad Press
Publication date September 2003
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 400 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-06-055754-0

The Known World is a 2003 historical novel by Edward P. Jones. It was his first novel and second book. Set in antebellum Virginia, it examines issues regarding the ownership of black slaves by free black people as well as by whites. A book with many points of view, The Known World paints an enormous canvas thick with personalities and situations that show how slavery destroys but can also be transcended.

The title of the book refers to the fact that the slaves were deprived of any formal education. For example, knowledge of geography was deemed dangerous by the slaveowners since it could help a fleeing slave to orientate himself outside of the plantation.

Contents

[edit] Awards and nominations

The novel won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004.[1][2] In 2005 it also won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ National Book Critics Circle Award past winners, Official Website
  2. ^ 'The Known World' Wins Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The New York Times
  3. ^ The Known World by Edward P. Jones wins the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Official Website

[edit] Scholarship

  • Tim A. Ryan, “Mapping the Unrepresentable: Slavery Fiction in the New Millennium.” Calls and Responses: The American Novel of Slavery since Gone with the Wind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2008: 185-208.

[edit] External links

Awards
Preceded by
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
2004
Succeeded by
Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson