Everything you need for every book you read. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave. 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup Upgrade to A + Intro Plot Summary Summary & Analysis Themes Quotes Characters Symbols Lit Devices Theme Wheel Teachers and parents Struggling with distance learning Our Teacher Edition on 12 Years a Slave can help. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.Īfter his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. Is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history.

Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Solomon's bravery and life deserve nothing less.' - Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir by Solomon Northup, a black man who was born free in New York and kidnapped by two men who sold him into slavery. I hope my film can play a part in drawing attention to this important book of courage. The book blew my] mind: the epic range, the details, the adventure, the horror, and the humanity. Only published nearly a hundred years before. 'I could not believe that I had never heard of this book. Solomon Northup (July 18081863) was an American abolitionist and the primary author of the memoir Twelve Years a Slave. The official movie tie-in edition to the winner of the 2014 Academy Award for Best Picture, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, and Lupita Nyong'o, and directed by Steve McQueen