Novel
Biography of a Runaway Slave
Biografía de un cimarrón
Miguel Barnet · 1966
Synopsis
Esteban Montejo, a former slave more than a hundred years old, tells his life story to Miguel Barnet. He speaks of the barracoons of the plantations, his escape and his freedom in the monte, the powers of plants, food and apparitions, then the war of independence, its mambí leaders and the battle of Mal Tiempo, and finally love and oblivion. The account is given in the first person, in a form that blends anthropology with literature.
Context
In 1963, press articles about a former slave aged one hundred and three lead Barnet to the veterans' home in Havana, where he interviews Montejo with a tape recorder, following the methods of anthropology. He says he took as his model Juan Pérez Jolote, by the Mexican anthropologist Ricardo Pozas. The book appeared in 1966 from the institute of ethnology and folklore and inaugurated the testimonial novel; the Mexican institute of anthropology reports in 2023 its eighty-fifth printing. Claude Couffon translated it at Gallimard as early as 1968.
Who it is for
A continuous narrative, carried by a single voice, very readable; it has been available in French since 1968, in a translation revised in 2021.
Prizes and reception
No prize for the book itself, reprinted more than eighty times since 1966 and translated into English as soon as it appeared.