Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #792232 in Books
• Published on: 1993-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 629 pages

Synopsis
En route to America with a cargo of African slaves, the crew of the Liverpool Merchant, enraged at the captain's impotence in the face of disease, carry out a mutiny that pits two cousins against each other.

Customer Reviews

Historical Fiction You Cannot Do Without
Barry Unsworth's novel does deserve the Booker Prize that it won. From the moment I picked it up it was impossible to put down. The novel starts with a description of two classes in 18th century England: the working class and the burgeoning mercantile class exemplified by Erasmus Kemp. I particularly like the way Barry Unsworth portrays bawdy tavern speak using its clipped sounds and mispronounced words.

Sacred Hunger races between gaudy mansions of the nouveau riche in the English countryside and the slave dealers abode in humid, hot West Africa. It underlines the common humanity in us all and the questions that injustice raises. The novel's ace-in-the-hole is that he does not adopt a moralizing tone on the issue of slave trade. The novel is a stark description of our pitiful, insatiable greed, which was the cause of the the injustice that was the Slave Trade.

If you are a serious history buff looking for some perspective into the Slave Trade then this is not the book for you. However, if you want a fantastic bit of storytelling with the slave trade as a backdrop then you must read this one.

Fantastic piece of history
What a wonderful book! The amount of research required for such an epic must be mind boggling. This is not just a novel about the slave trade, but a close look at the two very different personalities of the main protagonists, (as relevant today, as in 1752), and the justifcation, or not, of the Sacred Hunger of the title. We are treated to a graphic description of the terrible privations suffered by both the crew and their human cargo, and reminded of how human beings in certain parts of the world were treated worse than any animal, simply because of the colour of their skin. What more can I say? read it!

Powerful, immediate and disturbing - a wonderful novel
This epic of the eighteenth century British Slave Trade works at two levels. The first is as a straight and exciting narrative of the different stances to it of the two main characters, one who profits from it, and is at last morally enslaved by it himself while the other recognises its evil and attempts his own ultimately futile protest against it. At the second level the novel serves as a meditation on the nature of greed - the "Sacred Hunger" of the title, and the extent to which it can become a justification for any excess. Mr.Unsworth's genius in this book is however that the does not adapt a simplistic moralising tone but writes with understanding of the society that produced this abuse, and shows how potentially decent people could be drawn, unthinkingly, into the position of profiteers and exploiters. One does not get a sense here of modern perceptions and values being projected back on to an earlier age - the weakness which destroys so much serious fiction set in the past - and the characters' behaviour and attitudes, whether sympathetic to the Slave Trade or not , are consistent with those of eighteenth century British society. Like other novels of Unsworth's, this work has many echoes of Conrad, in its depiction of the depths to which humanity can so quickly plunge once the restraints of law and custom are relaxed. Though gripping from the first page it is disturbing work and the vividness of its plot and imagery will not quickly leave the reader. Very highly recommended.