Dessa Rose

One of the most artful contemporary narratives about slavery I've come across, this novel is all but impossible to put down once begun. Williams' carefully orchestrated descriptions and emphasis on physical realities makes each page both visual and powerful. The characters are engaging and believable, and the narrative itself is perfectly paced. Even as someone who's read many slave narratives and become very familiar with African American lit. as a whole, I found this full work a refreshing and wrenching page turner that holds up to literary standards and scrutiny. I'd absolutely recommend it to any readers---Williams' writing makes the story come alive, and her descriptions and dialect are perfect.

Dessa Rose opens with a dream, told in poetic language that draws the reader immediately and deeply into Dessa's world, the world of an American slave in 1847. Williams' genius is that she makes the reader experience that world in a way that few other novelists have. The story ends rather abruptly, with an equally abrupt change in point of view at the end, but in the total context of an incredibly beautiful, moving work, it hardly matters.

Not my favorite, but this book showed another side of the realities of slavery and the people who fought against it.

Dessa Rose is een jonge zwarte slavin die wacht op haar terechtstelling na te hebben deelgenomen aan een slavenopstand. Ze wordt bevrijd door enkele medeopstandelingen en vindt samen met andere voortvluchtigen onderdak op een plantage bij een blanke vrouw, Ruth. Na een aanvankelijk wantrouwen groeit er een vriendschap tussen Dessa en Ruth, waardoor beide vrouwen zelfbewuster en zelfstandiger worden.

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