They use a variety of techniques - historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes and fiery polemics - and approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people, populating this audiobook with hundreds of extraordinary lives and personalities. In 80 chronological chapters, each by a different author and spanning five years, the book charts the 400-year journey of African Americans to the present - a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles and stunning achievements - in a choral work of exceptional power and beauty.Ĭontributors include some of the leading writers, historians, journalists, lawyers, poets and activists of contemporary America. The story begins with the arrival of 20 Ndongo people on the shores of the first British colony in mainland America in 1619, the year before the arrival of the Mayflower. Bravo.ĪLSO IN BOOKPAGE: Go behind the scenes with the editors and producers of Four Hundred Souls, the year’s most astounding full-cast audiobook production.Four Hundred Souls is an epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, told by 90 leading Black voices. Listeners will learn and be moved, and will no doubt listen more than once. Offering the best of education and entertainment, this epic audiobook enhances Kendi and Blain’s transformative history project through the sense of humanity that only a person’s voice can convey.
The performances are straightforward or theatrical as appropriate, but they’re always engaging, and the variety of voices and styles sustains the listener’s attention. Eighty-seven narrators comprise the full cast, including the authors of some of the essays and poems as well as other notable voices such as journalist Soledad O’Brien and actors Danai Gurira and Leslie Odom Jr. The book is divided into five-year periods that span 400 years of the Black American experience, and the audiobook transitions between each section via layered, echoing voices for a haunting, emotional effect. A heartfelt chorus of voices composes a well-researched community mosaic of Black American history in Ibram X.
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