Summary “Song Yet Sung” by James McBride is in part a story about the Underground Railroad. But it’s also about much more. The story takes place in 1850 about a…
Tag: <span>historical fiction</span>
“Kindred” is a 1979 novel by Octavia E. Butler that blends science fiction with historical fiction by combining time travel with slave narratives. Dana is a Black woman who is a writer living in Los Angeles. She suddenly finds herself being transported back and forth between the then-present and a plantation in Maryland before the Civil War. During her travels to the past, Dana meets ancestors both enslaved and slave owners at different points in their lives. In effort to ensure that she will exist in the future, Dana tries to balance navigating antebellum society with attempting to have a positive influence on her ancestors.
“The True History of Paradise” by Margaret Cezair-Thompson in a sense tells the history of Jamaica through the lives and experiences of a fictional character and her family. The book opens in 1981 when political violence tore Jamaica apart and created a state of emergency that resulted in many people fleeing the country. Jean Landing is a young woman of mixed heritage from a financially comfortable and politically connected family. Devastated by the violence that now plagues the country, Jean plans to emigrate to America. When her sister dies right as she prepares to leave, the loss of her family member and beloved country causes her to look back over her life and we also get some insight into the lives of her ancestors.
“The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a biracial man looking back over his life. The story is told in the first-person though the narrator remains unnamed and is never described physically. He tells of being born in the South and growing up in Connecticut where he learns that he is a very light-skinned biracial boy who some assume is White. As a young man he sets out on his own and travels to different parts of America and later Europe, recounting his experiences in Black and White society along the way.
A review of “Driving Miss Daisy”, a 1989 dramedy film that was adapted for the big screen from an Alfred Uhry off-Broadway play. The movie is primarily about the life of Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy), an incredibly stubborn and rude older woman living in Atlanta. Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) is hired to work as Miss Daisy’s chauffeur in the 1940s and we see moments from their relationship and events of the time over 25 years. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won four.