Slave Women's Conversion in Spiritual and Political Black Narratives

The book Slave Women’s Conversion in Spiritual and Political Black Narratives situates black writers’ autobiography within the theoretical and practical contours of Nihilism and Love two aspects of the black experience all over the world since slavery. It highlights West’s (1994) perception that Nihilism – as meaningless hopeless and loveless life – can only be defeated by Love – as self-love and love of others. In the three personal accounts discussed the black writers’ self-displacement from Nihilism to Love is vastly documented by the narrators. Firstly Martins’s (2016) movement between these polarized aspects of the black experience leads him from Ariel to Calibán to Eshu. Secondly Lee’s (1849) tale conducts the spiritual narrator from sin to public preaching after conversion. Finally Brent’s (1861) discourse shows how the slave narrator moves from bondage to political activism as an abolitionist after fleeing from slavery. These three self-narrators of their own overcoming of Nihilism encompass personal connections to specific modalities of Love and Self-Love due to individual and collective conversion within literary spiritual and political discourses.