Coming soon.
The powerful graphic novel by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez is currently being adapted into a full-cast audio drama by award-winning playwright Tyler English-Beckwith.
A wholly original tour de force, Wake reveals the history of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall’s efforts to uncover the truth about these women warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record. Published as a graphic novel and a memoir, Wake has now been adapted into a dramatized audio original by critically acclaimed, Kennedy Center Paula Vogel Playwriting Award-winner Tyler English-Beckwith (Mingus, Maya and Rivers, TWENTYEIGHT, and more).
Women warriors planned and led slave revolts on slave ships during the Middle Passage. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas, and then they were erased from history. Wake tells the story of Dr. Rebecca Hall, a historian, granddaughter of slaves, and a woman haunted by the legacy of slavery. The accepted history of slave revolts has always told her that enslaved women took a back seat, but Rebecca decides to look deeper. Her journey takes her through old court records, slave ship captains' logs, crumbling correspondence, and even the forensic evidence from the bones of enslaved women from the “negro burying ground” uncovered in Manhattan. She finds women warriors everywhere.
Using in-depth archival research and a measured use of historical imagination, Rebecca constructs the likely pasts of Adono and Alele, women rebels who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, as well as the stories of women who led slave revolts in colonial New York. We also follow Rebecca’s own story as the legacy of slavery shapes her life, both during her time as a successful attorney, and later as a historian seeking the past that haunts her.
Adapted in audio from the beautifully illustrated graphic novel by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martínez, Wake will take its place alongside classics of the genre, like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Art Spiegelman’s Maus. The story, one of both personal and national legacy, is a powerful reminder that while the past is gone, we still live in its wake.
Watch the trailer.
Wake has been selected by Stephen Curry for his Literati book club “Underrated”
Each month, Stephen selects stories that highlight diverse protagonists and social justice issues to inspire his readers to push boundaries. He seeks to highlight underrepresented authors—women, people of color, and other overlooked voices—whose stories bring fresh perspectives and hope to every reader.
Advanced Praise for WAKE:
"Hall’s nuanced and affecting debut graphic narrative uncovers history that has either been assumed non-existent or rendered violently so by its almost complete erasure from official record.... The story follows Hall as she strives to write her dissertation on women-led slave revolts.... Hall’s singular look at these women, along with her own experiences and resilience, highlight how entwined the past and present really are. Martínez’s resonant black-and-white art cleverly integrates historical scenes into the present-day narrative."
— Publisher’s Weekly
“Not only a riveting tale of Black women’s leadership of slave revolts but an equally dramatic story of the engaged scholarship that enabled its discovery.”
—Angela Y. Davis, Activist
“A vividly illustrated account of Black women rebels that combines elements of memoir, archival research, and informed imaginings of its subjects' lives.... An urgent, brilliant work of historical excavation.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Educator and activist Hall, surrounded by stacks of books, tells readers on page nine of her first
graphic novel, "I am a historian. And I am haunted." She's searching for records of the Black
women warriors she knows participated in slave revolts, work that requires her to read between
every line and follow every disappearing trail. Using historical documents, letters, and "a
measured use of historical imagination," she reconstructs stories of revolt in New York in 1712
and aboard the slave ship Unity in 1770. She discovers that there were more revolts on ships
with more women present. As Hall speaks to us, we meet her family, present and past—her
partner and child, her Nana Harriet, born enslaved—and see her own experiences, such as
when she tries to access the archives of Lloyds of London, the insurer whose fortune began in
slave ships, and is met with cruel defiance. Martínez's dramatic woodcut-style illustrations are
the perfect complement to Hall's clear-eyed, impactful storytelling. Underscoring Hall's insistence that we live in history's wake, a single frame often encompasses multiple worlds—an eighteenth-
century gallows reflected in the window of an NYPD van, a contemporary construction site reminiscent of the sinewy, roiling sea people were forced to travel in chains. A necessary
corrective to violent erasure and a tribute to untold strength, this awe-inspiring collaboration
should find a wide audience.”
— Annie Bostrom, Booklist