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Sufferings in Africa

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Sufferings in Africa

By: James Riley
Narrated by: Brian Emerson
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About this listen

 In this classic tale of adventure, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, was captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert.

This dramatic account of Captain Riley's trials and sufferings sold more that one million copies in his day and was even read by a young and impressionable Abraham Lincoln. The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty.

Sufferings in Africa is a classic travel-adventure narrative and a fascinating testament of white Americans enslaved abroad, during a time when slavery flourished throughout the United States.

(P)2001 Blackstone Audiobooks 19th Century Africa Historical Modern Inspiring

Critic reviews

"Reader Brian Emerson is monotonous and cool, punctuating sentences by prolonging the last word and dropping his voice. The didactic, well-pronounced delivery...makes the history seem plausible." ( AudioFile)
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I enjoyed the story as I felt like travelling with him in the past and to all those places he mentioned in the story. However ending wasn’t concluded because I don’t know when and how he reached back to his own family. Overall very interesting and captivating.

Captivating

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I like to think I’m quite tolerant of poor narrators but this guy pretty much mangles any chance for the story to thrive. The writing style is of its time but I’ve listened to many similar where the reader’s made pleasant job of it.

This book’s reader destroys the story.

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