Paradise before your eyes

The theme of John Hearne's fascinating and gripping novel, which emerged in 1981 about the shipping of enslaved Africans - the so-called "middle passage" - was taken up by a whole range of authors in the 1990s. The year is 1860. The trade in enslaved Africans has been banned for decades for the English and Americans. However, the "Sure Salvation," under Captain Hogarth, sets sail for the New World with five hundred slaves on board. Hearne's 1981 novel portrays with great moral seriousness a subject that was only addressed by a number of authors in Caribbean and African American literature in the 1990s. It is a pessimistic work in which the divide between Black and White appears insurmountable. Betrayal, greed, and the decay of an entire civilization's values are central themes.