This week on From the Vault we continue to celebrate Black August by presenting a discussion of one of the most controversial novels of the 1960’s, The Confessions of Nat Turner.
Written in 1967 by William Styron after years of research, The Confessions of Nat Turner weaves fiction into the life Nat Turner, an African American who led a rebellion against slave owners in August of 1831. The novel would immediately draw criticism from Black writers and intelligentsia for Styron’s lack of understanding of the slave experience and misrepresenting one of the heroes of the slave era. Despite this outrage, the book would go on to win the 1968 Pulitzer Prize and would begin pre-production as a film by director Norman Jewison, who had just won an Academy Award for his film In The Heat of the Night. Also in 1968, William Styron’s longtime friend James Baldwin would moderate a discussion on the controversy surrounding this book with writer and activist Ossie Davis And Styron himself. The Pacifica Radio Archives is proud to present a recently restored recording of this amazing discussion.
From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.
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