Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for "Paradise Lost" and an unusual mentor -- William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as of his own slaves. When he dies, his widow, Caldonia, succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love beneath the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend estate, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave "speculators" sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years. An ambitious, luminously written novel that ranges seamlessly between the past and future and back again to the present, "The Known World" weaves together the lives of freed and enslaved blacks, whites, and Indians -- and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery.

美國著名作傢。為非洲黑人後裔。自小生活在貧窮的單親傢庭，是傢族中唯一接受過高等教育的人。1991年以處女作《迷失在都市》，一部描寫20世紀50—70年代華盛頓生活的短篇小說集。獲得海明威筆會奬。入圍國傢圖書奬。2003年齣版史詩巨作《已知的世界》，榮獲2004年普利策小說奬、美國圖書批評傢協會奬、2005年國際IMPAC都柏林文學奬，再次入圍美國國傢圖書奬。其最新作品為2006年齣版的小說集《夏甲姨媽的孩子們》。