This historical novel begins in 1752 in Liverpool. William Kemp, a merchant facing mounting debts, stakes his entire remaining fortune on constructing a slave ship named the Liverpool Merchant. To protect his investment, Kemp hires his idealistic nephew, Matthew Paris, a disgraced doctor and scientist, to serve as the ship’s surgeon. Kemp reasons that keeping the human cargo alive will maximise his profits.
The vessel sails to the Guinea Coast under the tyrannical command of Captain Saul Thurso, whose sole obsession is profit. Life aboard the ship is hell for both the enslaved Africans and the low-ranking sailors, who face brutal floggings, starvation rations, and disease.
During the infamous Middle Passage toward America, a severe outbreak of disease sweeps through the ship. To claim insurance on the losses and save remaining resources, Captain Thurso orders the sick slaves to be thrown overboard alive. Horrified by this savagery and pushed to the brink by the captain’s cruelty, Matthew Paris joins forces with the enraged crew and the enslaved Africans to launch a bloody mutiny. They kill Thurso, but the ship is blown off course and disappears from the known world.
Barry Unsworth (Barry Unsworth – Wikipedia) uses the slave trade as a microcosm for the ways capitalism can reduce human beings to raw material for profit. ‘Sacred hunger’ is the insatiable drive for financial gain. Rather than treating the 18th-century transatlantic slave trade as an isolated historical horror, Unsworth frames it as the predictable outcome of unfettered free-market capitalism. The novel still stands as an allegory for modern financial greed, showing how economic systems detach individuals from their personal morality.
This novel is the outcome of deep historical research. The prose style is dense and deliberately evokes the formal weight of 18th century literature. Unsworth’s unflinching realism makes for uncomfortable reading, whilst the book’s length at 640 pages certainly demands a sustained commitment in our age of three second attention spans.
Check if Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth is in stock at your local library by consulting the online catalogue here Home | South Lanarkshire Libraries (sllclibrary.co.uk)
JOINT WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 1992
640 pages in Penguin
First published 1992
ISBN-13 : 978-0140119930
Barry Unsworth