Feeding the ghosts

"The sea is slavery," begins Fred D'Aguiar's powerful novel, which starts aboard the Zong, a slave ship returning from Africa in 1781. Only ten weeks into the voyage, the Zong is struck with a disease that threatens to infect all of the human cargo. The ship's profit-driven commander, Captain Cunningham, conceives a gruesome plan to safeguard his financial investment. In order to recover insuranc...