Rescuing One Woman’s Life from Oblivion
Gregg Hecimovich on the Role of Historians in Uncovering the Past and Illuminating Our Lives
One of the most surprising books I read this year was The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts by Gregg Hecimovich, the story of an enslaved woman who surreptitiously learned to read and then wrote a fictionalized account of her life and escape to freedom in the first novel written by black woman in America, The Bondwoman’s Narrative.
