Preface, introduction and notes by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., afterword by Barbara A. White. The first novel ever written by a black American, this fusion of the sentimental novel and the slave narrative, first published in 1859, was neglected until it recently became the subject of renewed scholarly interest. Recently the subject of a front page New York Times article, Our Nig traces the life of Frado, a Mulatto girl who grows up as an indentured servant to a white Massachusetts family, offering an enormous contribution to the study of black American literature and history.
