{"product_id":"9781250321732","title":"The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003enotable book of 2023 | A finalist for the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times \u003c\/i\u003eBook Prize for biography | Winner of the 2024 George Washington Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[An] erudite, enlightening new biography . . . [Waldstreicher’s] interpretations equal Wheatley’s own intentional verse, making it a joy to follow along as he unpacks her words and their arrangement.” —Tiya Miles, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thoroughly researched, beautifully rendered and cogently argued . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley\u003c\/i\u003e is [. . .] historical biography at its best.” —Kerri Greenidge, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003e(Editors’ Choice)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose extraordinary poetry set African American literature at the heart of the American Revolution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eAdmired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age. Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, she composed elegies for local elites, celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. “Can I then but pray \/ Others may never feel tyrannic sway?” By doing so, she added her voice to a vibrant, multisided conversation about race, slavery, and discontent with British rule; before and after her emancipation, her verses shook up racial etiquette and used familiar forms to create bold new meanings. She demonstrated a complex but crucial fact of the times: that the American Revolution both strengthened and limited Black slavery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this new biography, the historian David Waldstreicher offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley’s life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the revolutionary era. Throughout \u003ci\u003eThe Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley\u003c\/i\u003e, he demonstrates the continued vitality and resonance of a woman who wrote, in a founding gesture of American literature, “Thy Power, O Liberty, makes strong the weak \/ And (wond’rous instinct) Ethiopians speak.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Picador","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42370495053885,"sku":"9781250321732","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0603\/0838\/9949\/files\/9781250321732_p0.jpg?v=1771590450","url":"https:\/\/www.tatteredcover.com\/products\/9781250321732","provider":"Tattered Cover","version":"1.0","type":"link"}