书名：Twelve Years a Slave为奴十二年
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数1200L
作者：Solomon Northup 所罗门·诺瑟普
出版社名称：William Collins
出版时间：2014
语种：英文
ISBN：9780007580422
商品尺寸：11 x 1.9 x 17.8 cm
包装：简装
页数：278 （以实物为准）

Twelve Years a Slave《为奴十二年》是奥斯卡获奖同名电影的原著。该书为所罗门·诺瑟普以自身亲身经历为蓝本创造的小说，讲述了一个原本生活在纽约的自由黑人，受过教育并且已婚，跟随两个承诺给他在华盛顿找工作的人去往当地，却发现自己已经被诱拐，从此开始12年的奴隶生涯的故事。斯托夫人所著的《汤姆叔叔的小屋》中的许多情节取材于这个故事。《为奴十二年》自出版后影响了此后的废奴运动，影响了美国近代历史，已被列入美国历史教材和大学必读书目。
本书是HarperCollins推出的英文版，为柯林斯经典系列（Collins Classics），含历史背景及作者介绍（Life & Times），后附英语词汇注释（Glossary of Classic Literature），生词表采用《柯林斯英语词典》的解释，有助于读者学习理解。
The shocking first-hand account of one man’s remarkable fight for freedom; now an award-winning motion picture.
“Why had I not died in my young years— before God had given me children to love and live for? What unhappiness and suffering and sorrow it would have prevented. I sighed for liberty; but the bondsman's chain was round me, and could not be shaken off.”
1841: Solomon Northup is a successful violinist when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Taken from his family in New York State— with no hope of ever seeing them again— and forced to work on the cotton plantations in the Deep South, he spends the next twelve years in captivity until his eventual escape in 1853.
First published in 1853, this extraordinary true story proved to be a powerful voice in the debate over slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. It is a true-life testament of one man’s courage and conviction in the face of unfathomable injustice and brutality: its influence on the course of American history cannot be overstated.
Features:
·Life & Times—a fascinating insight into the author, their work and the time of publication
·Glossary of Classic Literature—useful words and phrases at your fingertips, taken fromCollins English Dictionary

所罗门·诺瑟普本是一名会拉小提琴的自由人，却因被人欺骗沦为奴隶。十二年间，他经历了无数的屈辱，也竭力进行着抗争，终于回归自由。所罗门·诺瑟普描述了自身经历，记录了自己坚守尊严、追求自由的不懈抗争。
Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, 12 Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.
After his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognised for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave.

所罗门·诺瑟普（Solomon Northup）（1808-1875），是一个天生自由的非洲裔美国人。1841年，作为纽约市民的他在华盛顿特区被人绑架，贩卖成为一名奴隶，直到12年后1853年从路易斯安那州红河附近的种植园逃跑后，他成了一个废奴主义者，并写作出版了他的回忆录《为奴十二年》。这是他以自身亲身经历为蓝本创造的小说，一经上市便引起了美国社会的震动。
Solomon Northup was born a free man in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1808. He lived as such until 1841 when, attracted by a job offer, he travelled to Washington, DC, where he was drugged and sold into slavery by his supposed employers. Northup was enslaved for twelve years before he regained his freedom and returned to New York. There, he became an advocate for abolitionism and in the 1860s began helping fugitive slaves via the Underground Railroad. Northup is believed to have died between 1863 and 1875, but both the date and circumstances of his death are unknown.

Chapter 1
Having been born a freeman, and for more than thirty years enjoyed the blessings of liberty in a free State-and having at the end of that time been kidnapped and sold into Slavery, where I remained, until happily rescued in the month of January, 1853, after a bondage of twelve years—it has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public.
Since my return to liberty, I have not failed to perceive the increasing interest throughout the Northern States, in regard to the subject of Slavery. Works of fiction, professing to portray its features in their more pleasing as well as more repugnant aspects, have been circulated to an extent unprecedented, and, as I understand, have created a fruitful topic of comment and discussion.
I can speak of Slavery only so far as it came under my own observation—only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person. My object is, to give a candid and truthful statement of facts: to repeat the story of my life, without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage.
As far back as I have been able to ascertain, my ancestors on the paternal side were slaves in Rhode Island. They belonged to a family by the name of Northup, one of whom, removing to the State of New York, settled at Hoosic, in Rensselaer county. He brought with him Mintus Northup, my father. On the death of this gentleman, which must have occurred some fifty years ago, my father became free, having been emancipated by a direction in his will.
Henry B. Northup, Esq., of Sandy Hill, a distinguished counselor at law, and the man to whom, under Providence, I am indebted for my present liberty, and my return to the society of my wife and children, is a relative of the family in which my forefathers were thus held to service, and from which they took the name I bear. To this fact may be attributed the persevering interest he has taken in my behalf.