The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written by Himself
Olaudah Equiano
Who has the right to write their life? This, above all, is the question that Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative poses. As a genre, autobiography rests on notions of authenticity, self-consciousness, and unique selfhood that for centuries have been claimed as exclusive characteristics of the white man. The very act of a black man – a freed enslaved man – writing his own life was radical when Equiano published The Interesting Narrative in 1789.