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Olaudah Equiano and the Igbo world
In 1789 a freed man in London published an account of an Igbo childhood. Two centuries later scholars still argue about where he was born, but nearly everyone agrees on why his book matters.
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Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative is the best-known Igbo voice of the eighteenth century. This chapter follows the book Olaudah Equiano and the Igbo World (Korieh, 2009), a volume that grew out of the 2006 Howard University conference on Igbo studies and the 2007 Equiano conference in Owerri.
The chapters of that volume do not all agree. Where the authors disagree, or where an argument is advocacy, the pages say so.
In this chapter
01The man and the book
The 1789 book that opened a window on Igbo life.
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02Where was he born? The Isseke debate
Isseke, Carolina or somewhere else? What the evidence says.
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03Ichi marks, titles and what “status” meant
Scars, titles and the difference between a gentleman and a dimkpa.
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04Village life as Equiano described it
Elders, dancers, farmers and a household without beggars.
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05Country, nation, land: the Igbo sense of place
Why “country” and “nation” were different in the eighteenth century.
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06Reading the Narrative: literature, fact and fiction
Memory, craft and argument: how to read an autobiography.
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