Feeding the Ghosts [Hardcover]

Fred D'Aguiar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999

"The sea is slavery," begins Fred D'Aguiar's powerful novel, which starts aboard the Zong, a slave ship returning from Africa in 1781. Only ten weeks into the voyage, the Zong is struck with a disease that threatens to infect all of th human cargo.

The ship's profit-driven commander, Captain Cunningham, conceives a gruesome plan to safeguard his financial investment. In order to recover insurance money and protect the rest of the valuable stock, the captain orders his men to bring the sick and infirm slaves on deck in small numbers and throw them over the side.

During the roundup, Mintah, a young African woman raised in a Christian mission, begins to taunt Kelsal, the first mate, in whom she sees a hint of humanity. But her scheme fails, and Mintah is hurled into the sea, along with 131 other slaves.

"Mintah's first impression of the high sea was that it was cold and lighter through her fingers and around her skin than it appeared....Mintah parted her lips and inhaled. She breathed the sea." Then, almost by miracle, Mintah is able to grab the ship's rigging and climb back on board, where she hides out in a supply room. From there she tries to rouse the remaining slaves to rebel, becoming a secret force on the ship and stirring up unease among the crew with a voice and a conscience they seem unable to silence.

Inspired by a true story, Feeding The Ghosts confirms the importance of memory and testimony in the struggle against oblivion. This haunting novel is richly atmospheric, full of suspense, and profoundly moving.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his lyrical third novel, D'Aguiar (Whitbread Award winner for The Longest Memory) fictionalizes a horrifying incident that occurred in 1781. The Zong, a slave ship headed home to England, is packed to capacity with Africans. Shrewd and remote Captain Cunningham considers those 408 people chained below deck to be merely profitable cargo. But his first mate, Kelsal, has more ambivalent feelings about the captives because Africans once saved his life. When illness spreads among the slaves, Cunningham orders the crew to throw the sick overboard so the ship can collect insurance money for the loss. Mintah, an educated African who speaks English and who recognizes Kelsal from her days as one of his caregivers, stuns and frightens the crew with her heroic protests. Beaten and thrown into the sea, she manages to haul herself back onto the ship, where her influence both inspires and divides the remaining slaves. A trial is held upon the ship's arrival to determine liability for the 131 missing slaves. The crew is nearly absolved of responsibility until Mintah's journal is produced, which directly contradicts the crew's accounts. The final words belong to Mintah, whose first-person account of her life after the Zong is troubling and dramatic. D'Aguiar's spare prose starkly reveals the inner lives of Kelsal and Mintah and the crew members as they face the moral weight of this atrocity. D'Aguiar's imagery is haunting, his characters' thoughts complex and the mood darkly compelling. Comparisons to Amistad are inevitable, but D'Aguiar's accounting of the moral wages of the slave trade is a unique work of fiction that stands on its own merits. Agent, Bruce Hunter at David Higham Associates.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

By turns dreamlike and almost unbearably gritty, D'Aguiar's (Dear Future, LJ 8/96) poignant take on a historic event transports the reader deep into the very timbers of the slave ship Zong, en route from Africa. The ship runs off course, losing several sailors and slaves to disease before its captain makes the shocking decision to throw sick slaves overboard. Disgusted with their orders but either loyal or cowardly, the crew disposes of 131 sick Africans and one bold, articulate young slave woman, Mintah, who dares to object to the proceedings. Remarkably, Mintah survives the sea and climbs back on board the Zong, hiding in food stores and protected by the kind, slow-witted cook's assistant. She becomes the voice of hope and resistance. Upon the Zong's arrival in the Americas, the "destruction of stock" becomes the subject of a court case in which only Mintah's words consider its true horror. This gripping, horrifying, poetic novel is highly recommended for all libraries.?Janet Ingraham Dwyer, Worthington P.L., Columbus, OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 230 pages
• Publisher: Ecco Pr; 1st edition (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 088001623X
• ISBN-13: 978-0880016230
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,232,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grand storytelling!!, June 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Feeding the Ghosts (Hardcover)

This work is the best story expounding the imhumanity the peddling in flesh trade produced. By providing a portrait of victim and victimizer, Feeding the Ghost shows the banality humanity faced when coupled with the bottomline. I really, enjoyed this book and suggest that everyone read this story. Moreover, the imagery of the African coast, Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean folk culture leap off of the page into one's imagination. What more can I say than kudos to Fred D'Aguair. And strongly suggest that everyone read this vivid portrayal of life not so long ago.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Imagery Juxtaposed with the Middle Passage, December 6, 2005

By 

M. Kim (NY, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Feeding the Ghosts (Paperback)

D'Aguiar takes the creative license to create a story about a woman Mintah on the Middle Passage of the slave trade. When disease starts affecting those on board the slave ship Zong, the captain orders all the sick to be thrown into the sea. The narrative then closely follows Mintah as she survives being thrown overboard, climbs back on to the ship, lives secretly in the supply room with the help of Simon, the young cook's aid, and writes her experiences in a journal. D'Aguiar's language throughout the novel is simplistic yet so effective in describing the extraordinary events that surround Mintah, our heroine, that it is impossible to not be engaged with the storyline.

The only time that I felt that the narrative was jarred was in Part 2. This is the only part when D'Aguiar moves away from Mintah's perspective. Perhaps other reader consider this section to be necessary to the progression of the plot. I just wished the transition from the ship Zong to the court room.

An image manipulated in the novel is the sea. It comes to represent a conqueror, a friend, or an enemy. Its implications as a witness to and an embracer of the jettisoning of the Africans is thought-provoking and incredibly compelling.

Read this book. It will make you cry over something, whether it be the subject matter, Mintah's relationship with Simon, or just the lovely diction and imagery conjured by D'Aguiar.

4.0 out of 5 stars African diaspora, November 26, 2011

By 

E. A. Speed "whitechocolate" (El Paso/Ft Bliss TX) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Feeding the Ghosts (Hardcover)

D'Aguiar has written a very good version of what occurred on the slave ships as the Atlantic was crossed on the way to the Americas. He has made the reader experience the horrors as if they were there to see the horrendous events that happened. It is a useful selection in the library of a reader who is interested in the African diaspora.