Stephanie Von Rönn

The Re-creation of History: Narrative Constructions in the African-american Neo-slave Narrative Stephanie Von Rönn

The novels of contemporary American authors of African descent appear to aim, first and foremost, at the documentation or re-creation of the history of slavery from an African-American viewpoint. But as the history of African-Americans is an inseparable part of American history, contemporary slave narratives or neo-slave narratives correct and complete the general record of American history at the same time. Neo-slave narratives, in fact, make a significant contribution to establish African-American documents, such as slave narratives, as authentic, reliable, and trustworthy historical sources. Each neo-slave narrative contributes to the documentation of the African-American past and the cultural heritage of African Americans. The focus of this book is how authors of neo-slave narratives attempt to explore one central difficulty in this undertaking: the freeing of the voice or perspective of African-Americans, an aspect that is closely related to the discussion of authenticity and reliability of documents of slaves.