Book summary

Published during the political and racial turmoil of the 1960s, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER is a fictionalized version of the written documents of a man who led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831. As Styron wrote at the time, "Had perfect accuracy been my aim I would have written a work of history rather than a novel." His controversial novel is the tragic story of the effects of oppression on a man's inherent goodness and decency.

Media reviews

"This is a first-rate novel...and the best by an American writer that has appeared in some years...Styron maintains throughout his narrative a consistent and highly imaginative realism not only on the object plane, but also by recreating the intimate psychology of his characters...In a way inconceivable, even for Faulkner, Styron's prose master."