NEWS

Harvard's Henry Louis Gates to speak about novel, thought to be the first by a black American woman

CHAPEL HILL -- Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who recently published a manuscript that scholars say is likely the earliest novel by a black American woman, will speak about the story May 29 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The free public talk and Gates' signing of the book, "The Bondwoman's Narrative," by Hannah Crafts, will begin at 7 p.m. in the Hanes Art Center Auditorium. Scholars including Gates, chairman of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University, and English professor Dr. William Andrews of UNC, believe the novel also is the only one by a formerly enslaved woman.

Crafts' story is the fictional first-person account of an enslaved woman who lived in Virginia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. The protagonist discovers a dark secret about her mistress and eventually escapes to freedom in the New Jersey. The New York Times Book Review (May 12) called the tale "an immensely entertaining and illuminating novel."

Warner Books recently published the book, which includes an introduction and appendix by Gates that credit Andrews and his research assistant Bryan Sinche.

Andrews was among the experts on early African-American literature whom Gates called a year ago for help in documenting the manuscript's authenticity. The two had worked together on several books. Gates had bought the handwritten manuscript last year for $8,500 from a Howard University librarian, who bought it for $85 in 1948 from a New York book dealer, who got it from someone called a book scout, who found it in New Jersey.

"He wanted to figure out who the author was and if she was who she was represented as being," Andrews said. "He asked people to help him nail down references in the text that could be connected to historical sources."  And did a historical source ever jump out at Andrews on his first reading: "The most remarkable thing was the realization that a character in the novel was not only a historical figure but also was a slave holder from North Carolina who would become involved in a major test of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850."

The novel's narrator lists her owner as John Hill Wheeler, who Andrews recognized as a real historical figure, a North Carolina plantation owner and state legislator who lived in Lincoln County, N.C., and, after 1853, in Washington, D.C. A defender of slavery, Wheeler tried to regain a fugitive slave, Jane Johnson, in an 1855 court case.

That bit of history helps authenticate the novel, Andrews said: "In Crafts' narrative, the wife of John Wheeler says to her, 'I want you to become my maid. I just haven't been able to find a good maid since Jane ran off.' So there seems to be a basis in history here."

Gates did the lion's share of research in the project, Andrews said, but he was happy to help: "I found it exciting to work on the detective side of this."

Also helping with the probe was Sinche, a Fredericksburg, Va., native who has completed his master's degree and begun doctorate work in English at UNC. He was able to find the real Wheeler's diary, in which the planter listed books in his library including works by Charles Dickens. That helped Gates document that Crafts was who she said she was, because her writing style was clearly, and heavily, influenced by Dickens.

Another goal of the research was to identify the author's race, because during slavery, it was not uncommon for white authors to write about slavery and attribute the work to slave authors.

"I felt that there were any number of indications in the book that it could be by a black woman," Andrews said. "I have read many slave narratives, as well as early African-American literature, but never anything like this." Sinche described the book as a compelling, accessible read easily completed in a couple of afternoons.

Gates is the W.E.B. Du Bois professor of the humanities and director of the DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard. He has edited other long-lost works of African-American literature and written major critical texts including "The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism" (Oxford University Press), which won the American Book Award in 1989.

Before joining the Harvard faculty in 1991, Gates taught at Yale, Cornell and Duke universities. His honors include a National Humanities Medal, a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" and the George Polk Award for Social Commentary. In 1997, Time magazine listed him among the "25 most influential Americans."

He has edited anthologies including "The Norton Anthology of African American Literature" and "The Oxford-Schomburg Library of 19th Century Black Women Writers." He wrote books including "Colored People: A Memoir" (Knopf, 1994), which traces his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the 1950s and 1960s.

UNC's English department and College of Arts and Sciences will co-sponsor Gates' visit. For more information, call 843-6339.

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Contacts: Dr. William Andrews, 919-962-4029; Dee Reid, 919-843-6339