New Film 'Lost Nation' Draws Inspiration from Book by English's Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

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"Lost Nation"—a new film by Vermont director Jay Craven that explores the stories of rebel schemer Ethan Allen and poet and activist Lucy Terry Prince—was influenced, in part, by a book written by Paul Murray Kendall Chair in Biography and Professor of English Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina.

According to a recent article in the Manchester Journal: 

[Director Jay] Craven, having long held an interest in Allen’s life, learned about Prince through research for a previous film that connected him with Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, author of “Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary 18th-Century Family Moved out of Slavery and into Legend.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary 18th-Century Family Moved out of Slavery and into Legend" merged grand storytelling with meticulously researched history, providing a detailed history of not only a pre-Civil War African American family in New England but also the challenges that faced African Americans in the North versus the slaves in the South.

It follows Lucy Prince, who worked freely as an innkeeper and later went on to become the first published African American poet, and Abijah Prince, her husband, who was a veteran of the American Revolution and a resourceful and skilled entrepreneur. 

After they wed, they pursued what would become the cornerstone of the American Dream—having a family and owning property where they could live, grow, and prosper. However, after acquiring land in both Vermont and Massachusetts, they faced challenge upon challenge from those who sought to force them from their land. But instead of fleeing or giving up, they asserted their rights in court to fight for what was theirs, something they had done before and would do numerous times in the future.

The book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the 2009 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Richard O. Hathaway Award from the Vermont Historical Society.