Fire on the Water

Lenora Warren about her book, Fire on the Water: Sailors, Slaves, and Insurrection in Early American Literature, 1789-1886, published by Bucknell University Press in 2019. Fire on the Water looks at the history of abolition and slave violence by looking at the representation of shipboard mutiny and insurrection in late 18th and early 19th century literature. By examining the intersection of both real and fictional stories, Warren explains how mutiny and insurrection were critical to the development of the abolitionist movement, even as the connection between slave violence and the abolitionist movement was a complex and fraught relationship. Warren is a lecturer in the English department at Ithaca College. She specializes in Early African American and American literature, and maritime 18th and 19th century British and American literature.

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Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland.