12 Years a Slave: Book vs. Movie
Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave (2013) adapts Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir Twelve Years a Slave. It follows a free Black man kidnapped into slavery and his efforts to return to his family.
About the book and the movie
- Author
- Solomon Northup
- Year
- 1853
- Pages
- 248Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 7 hr 35 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- Dion Graham
Solomon Northup recounts how an offer of work as a musician takes him from his free life in New York to captivity in Louisiana. Forced to live under another name, he describes the labor, punishments, and transactions that govern plantation life, along with the people enslaved beside him. His efforts to get word to the North depend on finding someone he can trust without exposing himself to further violence.
- Director
- Steve McQueen
- Writer
- John Ridley
- Year
- 2013
- Runtime
- 2 hr 13 minWatch on Amazon
- Cast
- Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano
- Genre
- biographical, Drama
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
Kidnapped while traveling for work, Solomon Northup is sold to plantation owners who refuse to recognize his name or his freedom. He learns to conceal his education and judge when resistance will place him in greater danger, especially under the volatile Edwin Epps. His friendship with Patsey, another enslaved worker, brings him close to suffering he cannot prevent while he searches for a way to contact his family.
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