Zong!

by M Nourbese Philip and Marlene NourbeSe Philip

Book Overview

A haunting lifeline between archive and memory, law and poetry

In November, 1781, the captain of the slave ship Zong ordered that some 150 Africans be murdered by drowning so that the ship's owners could collect insurance monies. Relying entirely on the words of the legal decision Gregson v. Gilbert--the only extant public document related to the massacre of these African slaves--Zong tells the story that cannot be told yet must...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819568767
• ISBN13: 9780819568762
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

One of the most important poetry books I've ever read

Zong! is a heavy-hitter. It fights for "the untold story that tells itself by not telling." M. NourbeSe Philip is brilliant, and I cannot express my awe of her work enough. This is a masterpiece of erasure poetry, and it's a must-read for any reader or writer concerned with erasure, ancestors lost to empire-building and the crime of slavery, and the soul. My life is divided into the time before I read Zong! and the time after I read Zong!