Searching for Hannah Crafts: The First African American Woman Novelist

In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown.

Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in his book The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, he finally tells her life story. In this talk, Dr. Hecimovich will trace his journey of discovery to uncover the multi-generational story of America’s first Black woman novelist.

Gregg Hecimovich is professor of English at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina and a Non-Resident Fellow of the Hutchins Center at Harvard University. He received his PhD in English from Vanderbilt University and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and elsewhere.