SONG OF THE SHANK

The Song of the Shank is based on true events, which Jeffery Renard Allen’s writing has combined with fiction to give us an excellent novel that has won the public and critics alike and has been awarded numerous prizes.
The central character in the narrative is Thomas Green Wiggins, a 19th century African-American pianist, composer and performer, who gave concerts under the nickname of Blind Tom. He was born in Georgia in 1849 and was indeed blind. From the age of six he gave piano recitals. He had become famous not only in the United States, but also in Europe, and was the only African American to give a recital at the White House. He remained in obscurity, however, for the reason that musicologists treated him as autistic and therefore not a true musical talent. Tom breathed, woke up and slept with music. He didn’t care if he was paid, or who he played for, or if he was considered a genius or a strange being. The pianist, who was paid more than Rubinstein, who had regular audiences of famous artists like Mark Twain, and who was brought back to prominence by Oliver Sachs in his book An Anthropologist on Mars, was black, blind and autistic.
Jeffery Renard Allen with his unique literary writing manages to portray Tom and bring out the times of intense conflict in which he lived.