Daniel

"By what Name are we to call Thee, Master, to worship Thy divinity"
"I AM THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE."
"O Master, those are Thy flames roaring through ransacked villages, Thy foolish mothers bereft, Thy silly, defenceless victims screaming, Thy whips striking home."
"I AM ULTIMATE EVIL. FALL DOWN BEFORE ME. THERE IS NO CRUELTY GREATER THAN MINE."

So begins one of the most potent passages in Richard Adam's new novel. Daniel is a slave; born in 1759 he is exposed to the miseries of life on a plantation in the U.S. Expelled by his master for killing another slave, Daniel is brought to England by a sodomising fake cleric and finds himself in the care of a respectable family. He eventually becomes page to a rich Quaker widow. On leaving her service he seeks his fortune by signing up for a journey with a slave ship. Sickened and disheartened by what he sees aboard the ship, he meets Thomas Clarkson and joins his campaign against slavery. He worked with both Clarkson and Wilberforce in speaking out against the 'abominable practice? of slavery.

Daniel is a powerful, spellbinding tale and is well timed to coincide with next year's anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery Act. (March 1807) This is an important anniversary because the transatlantic trade in African peoples was so widespread with such far-reaching effects, across Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas that this date still resonates in society today.