When a slaveowner and his African-American butler drunkenly decide to switch places in each other's beds, the result is a hilarious imbroglio and an offspring, Andrew Hawkins, whose life becomes the "Oxherding Tale," a deliciously funny, bitterly ironic account of slavery, racism, oppressi...

When a slaveowner and his African-American butler drunkenly decide to switch places in each other's beds, the result is a hilarious imbroglio and an offspring, Andrew Hawkins, whose life becomes the "Oxherding Tale," a deliciously funny, bitterly ironic account of slavery, racism, oppression--and the African-American spirit--in the Old South.

** From National Book Award-winning author, Charles Johnson, comes a wonderful mythic novel, part slave narrative, part comedy, part myth--first published in 1982 this phenomenally imaginative work marries Johnson's knowledge of philosophy, religion, race and history.*One night in the antebellum South, a slave owner and his African American butler stay up to all hours until, too drunk to face their wives, they switch places in each other's beds. The result is a hilarious imbroglio and an offspring--Andrew Hawkins, whose life becomes Oxherding Tale *. Through sexual escapades, picaresque adventures, and philosophical inquiry, Hawkins navigates white and black worlds and comments wryly on human nature along the way. Told with pure genius, Oxherding Tale is a deliciously funny, bitterly ironic account of slavery, racism, and the human spirit--and it reveals the author as a great talent with even greater humanity.