From National Book Award–winning author, Charles Johnson, comes a wonderful mythic novel, part slave narrative, part comedy, part myth — first published in 1982 this phenomenally imaginative work marries Johnson's knowledge of philosophy, religion, race and history. One night in the antebellum South, a slave owner and his African American butler stay up to all hours until, too drunk to face their wives, they switch places in each other's beds. The result is a hilarious imbroglio and an offspring—Andrew Hawkins, whose life becomes Oxherding Tale . Through sexual escapades, picaresque adventures, and philosophical inquiry, Hawkins navigates white and black worlds and comments wryly on human nature along the way. Told with pure genius, Oxherding Tale is a deliciously funny, bitterly ironic account of slavery, racism, and the human spirit—and it reveals the author as a great talent with even greater humanity.