The Return of Benjamin Lay

by Marcus Rediker, Marcus Rediker

In your hearts you know the truth: I was here among you three hundred years ago . . . Had you chosen differently then - before slavery and greed breathed their venom so deeply into our souls - we would be living in another world now. It is not too late to purge these poisons.

Benjamin Lay - shepherd, sailor, prophet, and the British Empire's first revolutionary abolitionist - returns from the grave almost three hundred years after his death, as feisty and unpredictable as ever.

A four-feet-tall 'Little David' confronts the 'Goliath' of slavery once again as he pleads to be readmitted into the Quaker community that has disowned him and who still believe him to be dangerous.

Now, 'trembling at the edge of playing God himself', how far will Benjamin go as he stares down his accusers?

The Return of Benjamin Lay sweeps across the centuries in a bold exploration of an utterly impossible man. The play opened at the Finborough Theatre, London, in June 2023.

64 pages, Paperback

Published June 15, 2023

About the author

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Research Fellow at the Collège d’études mondiales in Paris. He is the author of numerous prize-winning books, including The Many-Headed Hydra (with Peter Linebaugh), The Slave Ship, and The Amistad Rebellion. He produced the award-winning documentary film Ghosts of Amistad (Tony Buba, director), about how the Amistad Mutiny of 1839 lives on today in popular memory among the people of Sierra Leone.