ABSTRACT
In 2006, slavery historian James Walvin declared that 'Equiano has gone from obscurity to international celebrity in a single generation'. In the decade since Walvin's pronouncement, the extent of Olaudah Equiano's modern-day renown as the greatest black intellectual of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world seems to have become unassailable. Equiano's autobiography, The Interesting Narrative, has similarly come to dominate how eighteenth-century black Atlantic writing–and indeed the slave trade–is taught at universities and schools in Britain. Students can now choose between several unabridged modern editions of the text, or from one of many more edited selections, either in slim, standalone volumes or as part of anthologies. Paring down Equiano's work for students in this way is not without its risks however, as demonstrated by Srinivas Aravamudan's stinging 2001 dismissal of Adam Potkay and Sandra Burr's selections as 'Equiano Lite'.
