We Slaves of Suriname

A New Statesman Book of the Year

Selected as a Best Book of 2022 by Public Books

“one of the most important works of twentieth-century anticolonial literature.”
LSE Review of Books

“De Kom is to Suriname what Mandela is to South Africa: a heroic patriot, an advocate of the oppressed, and a symbol of resistance against colonialism.”
Unherd

“Heart-breaking... he succeeds in bringing to painful life the savagery of what is now widely considered the most vicious colonization project ever.”
New Internationalist

“Almost ninety years after its first appearance, We Slaves of Suriname is still an exemplary description and analysis of Suriname’s history, which has not lost its power of expression. From micro to macro situations, De Kom displays phenomenal psychological insight and an acute sense of the driving forces of class and race.”
Gloria Wekker, Professor Emerita, Utrecht University

"We Slaves of Suriname is both an analysis of Suriname’s postcolonial predicament and an insurgent commentary on the archives of Dutch writing about Suriname… By interrogating the crater left by colonialism in the landscape of modernity, De Kom produces a text that speaks, avant la lettre, directly to postcolonial concerns."
Postcolonial Studies Journal

“An astounding work of lyrical fury … De Kom is a towering radical and anticolonial figure, and this book a painful masterpiece.”
China Miéville, New Statesman

“a classic of anticolonial Black leftist thought”
Public Books

"The plantation-dominated past that Suriname shares with the wider Caribbean is vividly brought to life in a 'new' book ... Books in English on Suriname are rare, and this one — We Slaves of Suriname — is a gem."
Caribbean Beat