Sao Tome: Journey to the Abyss-- Portugal's Stolen Children
Fiction & Literature, Historical, Literary
| Author: | Paul Cohn | ISBN: | 9781452342245 |
| Publisher: | Paul Cohn | Publication: | June 8, 2010 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords Edition | Language: | English |
| Author: | Paul Cohn |
| ISBN: | 9781452342245 |
| Publisher: | Paul Cohn |
| Publication: | June 8, 2010 |
| Imprint: | Smashwords Edition |
| Language: | English |
In 1485 the Portuguese Crown and Catholic Church began to kidnap Jewish children, forcibly convert the young conscripts, and ship them to São Tomé Island off the African equator to work the government sugar plantations. The collision of slavery, sugar agriculture, and discovery of The Americas transformed this island colony into the nidus of the wholesale black slave trade that infected Africa and Western commerce for the next 350 years. "São Tomé" reveals the Medieval Church's complicity in the business of human bondage.
This little-known chapter of the Diaspora tells the story of young Marcel Saulo and his sister Leah abducted with other children from their synagogue in Lisbon and shipped by caravel 4,000 miles to the West-African island where they bear witness to the holocaust of African slavery. This is a historical novel that chronicles one man's courageous struggle against religious and racial persecution, torture, and disease, and explores the abyss of Inquisition, Portuguese and Spanish world expansion, and the blight of slavery fueled by the calamitous growth of sugar commerce.
Now published in Portuguese, October 15, 2008, entitled "Rapto em Lisboa" (Kidnapping in Lisbon)
Reviews:
"São Tomé: A riveting work of historical fiction. ...vivid portrayal and character descriptions. ...powerful, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking and joyous. Impossible to put down." --Michele Jones, The Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh, December 18, 2008
"São Tomé (Rapto em Lisboa) ...the ideal historical novel... thorough, persuasive, vivid and uncompromising... A classic of the era." --Paulo Nogueira, EXPRESS (Lisbon), October 15, 2008
"São Tomé... inordinately readable, an extraordinary accomplishment. Straightforward and narratively complex, riveting as story-telling... a journey of courage, bravery and faith that commands respect, enlightens the reader, and pleads for a wide readership." --Brady Harp, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Powells Books Review
In 1485 the Portuguese Crown and Catholic Church began to kidnap Jewish children, forcibly convert the young conscripts, and ship them to São Tomé Island off the African equator to work the government sugar plantations. The collision of slavery, sugar agriculture, and discovery of The Americas transformed this island colony into the nidus of the wholesale black slave trade that infected Africa and Western commerce for the next 350 years. "São Tomé" reveals the Medieval Church's complicity in the business of human bondage.
This little-known chapter of the Diaspora tells the story of young Marcel Saulo and his sister Leah abducted with other children from their synagogue in Lisbon and shipped by caravel 4,000 miles to the West-African island where they bear witness to the holocaust of African slavery. This is a historical novel that chronicles one man's courageous struggle against religious and racial persecution, torture, and disease, and explores the abyss of Inquisition, Portuguese and Spanish world expansion, and the blight of slavery fueled by the calamitous growth of sugar commerce.
Now published in Portuguese, October 15, 2008, entitled "Rapto em Lisboa" (Kidnapping in Lisbon)
Reviews:
"São Tomé: A riveting work of historical fiction. ...vivid portrayal and character descriptions. ...powerful, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking and joyous. Impossible to put down." --Michele Jones, The Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh, December 18, 2008
"São Tomé (Rapto em Lisboa) ...the ideal historical novel... thorough, persuasive, vivid and uncompromising... A classic of the era." --Paulo Nogueira, EXPRESS (Lisbon), October 15, 2008
"São Tomé... inordinately readable, an extraordinary accomplishment. Straightforward and narratively complex, riveting as story-telling... a journey of courage, bravery and faith that commands respect, enlightens the reader, and pleads for a wide readership." --Brady Harp, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Powells Books Review
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