Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa: what’s in a name?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30612/frh.v24i43.16560Keywords:
Autobiography. Slave narrative. Equiano. Abolition. Nom de plume.Abstract
This article deals with the controversy over the author's name of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (London, 1789). The controversy is in the ways in which Equiano or Vassa in part related to his birthplace. The choice of the name he used daily raises questions about the way scholars want to understand the author, but also how the man himself represented himself at the time he lived and wrote his autobiography. I argue that the author of The Interesting Narrative used his birth name, Olaudah Equiano, as proof of his African origin, rather than a name he wanted to be known by, Gustavus Vassa. So, the dilemma is why scholars refer to him by his African name when he chose not to. It is suggested that the use of the birth name has more to do with the politics of representation and political correctness of later generations of scholarship, not the intent of the man. The reason for the debate over his birth has more to do with the current confrontation between literary scholarship and historical interpretation than with possible misinterpretations and misrepresentations of the past.
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