Bible Study Guide for Women & Men

Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" is Zora Neale Hurston's account of her interviews with Cudjo Lewis, one of the last living survivors of the final slave ship to reach the United States. Hurston recorded his story in his own words and dialect in 1931. It went unpublished for decades and reached readers at last in 2018, edited by Deborah G. Plant with a foreword by Alice Walker.

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Readers of American history and Black history, anyone who came to Hurston through Their Eyes Were Watching God, students and book clubs, and readers who want history in the voice of someone who lived it rather than summarized at a distance.

Hurston wrote the manuscript in Lewis's own vernacular and declined to revise it into standard English, which publishers at the time wanted. The book stayed in archives until Deborah G. Plant's edition brought it into print, preserving the speech exactly as Hurston set it down.

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It's short, and the narrative itself is direct. Lewis's speech is rendered in dialect, which takes a few pages to settle into and is central to what the book preserves. The subject matter is painful by nature, but the prose is not academic or dense.

It's a considered gift for readers of history and literature, and a frequent pick for book clubs and classrooms. Given the subject, it suits a reader who wants to sit with the material rather than someone looking for a light read.

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