The Conjure Woman (New Edition)

An early slave narrative, a skilfully woven satire on the stereotypes of plantation life and the apparently beneficent white owner. Told as a series of gentle fables, in the style of Aesop.

Featuring a new introduction for this new edition, The Conjure Woman is probably Chesnutt's most powerful work, a collection of stories set in post-war North Carolina. The main character is Uncle Julius, a former slave, who entertains a white couple from the North with fantastic tales of antebellum plantation life. Julius tells of supernatural phenomenon, hauntings, transfiguration, and conjuring, which were typical of Southern African-American folk tales at the time. Uncle Julius tells the stories in a way that speaks beyond his immediate audience, offering stories of slavery and inequality that are, to the enlightened reader, obviously wrong. The tales are fabulistic, like those of Uncle Remus or Aesop, with carefully crafted allegories on the psychological and social effects of slavery and racial injustice.

Foundations of Black Science Fiction. New forewords and fresh introductions give long-overdue perspectives on significant, early Black proto-sci-fi and speculative fiction authors who wrote with natural justice and civil rights in their hearts, their voices reaching forward to the writers of today. The series foreword is by Dr Sandra Grayson.

About the Author
Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932) was an African-American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South of America. He worked with W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington in the cause of emancipation and equality for African Americans.

Dr. Sandra M. Grayson (Series Foreword) is a tenured Full Professor in the English Department at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her numerous publications include the books Visions of the Third Millennium: Black Science Fiction Novelists Write the Future; Symbolizing the Past: Reading Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, and Eve's Bayou as Histories; A Literary Revolution: In the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance; and Sparks of Resistance, Flames of Change: Black Communities and Activism.

Dr. Piper Huguley (Introduction) is a two-time Golden Heart(R) finalist. A recipient of the Paul Bowles fellowship, her Ph.D. is from Georgia State University in Twentieth-Century United States Literature. Her scholarly work on Zora Neale Hurston can be found in 'The Inside Light' New Critical Essays on Zora Neale Hurston. She has written ten historical fiction novels and novellas, with the latest, By Her Own Design, published by William Morrow in June 2022. Huguley is currently a lecturer in the English department at Clark Atlanta University where she teaches Composition and Literature courses. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and son.