The Known World, winner of the 2003 Pulizer Prize for fiction, is a moving depiction of the lives, deaths, loves and sheer survival of a group of slaves inhabiting the fictional Manchester County, Virginia in the antebellum south. A special twist on this theme is the fact that the important characters in the book are free black slave owners and their slaves. However, the brutalization of slavery to all who come into contact with it is strongly portrayed and painful to read. Jones situates the main story in events occurring in 1855 but freely jumps across time boundaries to tell the stories of the old age or death of characters, their ancestors or descendants. There are several ways to understand the title: the "known world" was the only familiar one for the slaves, many of whom were resigned to accept the brutal and degrading slave life as their only option. It also suggests, ironically, that this world is still not very well know by an American society in collective denial of both the past and the present legacy of the awful, corrupting and inhumane institutionalized system of racism known as slavery.
For a review of the book from the Guardian, click here:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/31/history.pulitzerprize
For a review of the book from the Guardian, click here:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/31/history.pulitzerprize
