Based on a historic episode—the only attempt to armed insurrection of black slaves in the southern United States prior to the Civil War—and in a real case for which there was hardly any documentation, through the account of one-off events and the confession of the slave-murderer himself, William Styron builds one of the best American novels of recent years. The revolt was led by a noted black preacher named Nat Turner, an educated slave, who felt the divine order to rise up in arms and execute the bloodiest vengeance: annihilate all white people in the region. Nat Turner's confessions were narrated by himself while he remained in prison during the cold autumn days leading up to his execution.

It is not only a masterpiece of literature, but it reveals in human and unforgettable terms the agonizing essence of slavery: the betrayals, cruelties, and humiliations that made it up and that still endure in the collective psyche of African-Americans. Through the mind of a slave, Styron recreates a catastrophic and dramatic event, as well as the miseries, frustrations and intermingled hopes of this extraordinary person, to draw the first mists of our history and point out those who had their people subdued and enslaved.