Critiques en avant-premièreJames McBride

“I was born a colored man and don’t you forget it. But I lived as a colored woman for seventeen years.” So begins James McBride’s captivating new novel, The Good Lord Bird. Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry’s master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town – with Brown, who believes he’s a girl. Over the ensuing months, Henry – whom Brown nicknames Little Onion –is forced to conceal his true identity as he struggles to stay alive during these turbulent times. Eventually Little Onion finds himself involved in Brown’s historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 – one of the great catalysts for the Civil War. An absorbing mixture of history and imagination, and told with McBride’s meticulous eye for detail and character, The Good Lord Bird is both a rousing adventure and an engrossing and moving exploration of identity, survival and injustice.