Books like Sold as a Slave by Olaudah Equiano

Roald Dahl’s humorous memoir of his early years, from birth through his time at an English boarding school and his first job at Royal Dutch Shell.

An autobiographical account of Olaudah Equiano’s journey from enslavement in West Africa to freedom and entrepreneurial success, offering a rare first‑hand perspective on the Atlantic slave trade.

A compelling collection of essays where Zadie Smith blends personal reflection, literary criticism, and cultural commentary, exploring topics from film and American politics to identity and creative process.

Contains primary source material.

Set in Jamaica during the final decades of slavery and the dawn of freedom, "The Long Song" traces the lives of enslaved people and their families as they confront upheaval and hope.

Anyone who loves France (or just feels strongly about it), or has succumbed to the spell of Julian Barnes's previous books, will be enraptured by this collection of essays on the country and its culture. Barnes's appreciation extends from France's vanishing peasantry to its hyper-literate pop singers, from the gleeful iconoclasm of nouvelle vague cinema to the orgy of drugs and suffering that is the Tour de France. Above all, Barnes is an unparalleled connoisseur of French writing and writers. Here are the prolific and priapic Simenon, Baudelaire, Sand and Sartre, and several dazzling excursions on the prickly genius of Flaubert. Lively yet discriminating in its enthusiasm, seemingly infinite in its range of reference, and written in prose as stylish as haute couture, Something to Declare is an unadulterated joy.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A biographical portrait of Jewish author Kurban Said (Nussimbaum), tracing his rise from Baku to Berlin and his fascination with the Arab world, revealing how his life shaped and was shaped by twentieth‑century ideas of race and faith.

John M. Synge’s six‑week visits to the Aran Islands in the late 1890s, recommended by Yeats, profoundly shaped his writing and led to the plays for which he is best remembered.

A harrowing account of the Rwandan genocide, revealing the truth behind the headlines.

Fanny Burney’s journals and letters chronicle her life from London society through court service to exile in France, offering candid portraits of figures like George III, Samuel Johnson, and Napoleon.