Extracts from Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, first published in 1789 in London, is the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, an African from what is now Nigeria who was enslaved in childhood and eventually bought his freedom and became an abolitionist in the United Kingdom. The narrative is argued to represent a variety of styles, such as a slavery narrative, travel narrative, and spiritual narrative. The book describes Equiano's time spent in enslavement, and keeps track of his attempts at becoming an independent man through his study of the Bible, and his success in the end in gaining his own freedom and in business thereafter. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0)