The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, credited to James Weldon Johnson, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. Read in English by James K. White Johnson's only novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, was originally published anonymously in 1912. It is a fictional novel written as a memoir of an unnamed biracial narrator who grew up in the South during the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction eras. It is a story in which the narrator relates how as a young boy he initially assumed that he was white, and how his notions of racial identity were suddenly turned upside down one day—how from that moment on he was inclined to view himself and the world about him from the perspective of blackness. The novel received very little notoriety until Johnson republished it in 1927, this time taking full credit as its author. - Summary by James K. White

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
• Author credits: James Weldon Johnson
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 11
• Listed recording duration: 5:05:12

Catalogue topics

• racism
• passing
• african-american narrative
• african-american diaspora
• 19th century african-american fiction

Track guide

1. 01 - Section 1 — 27:25
2. 02 - Section 2 — 27:08
3. 03 - Section 3 — 18:35
4. 04 - Section 4 — 20:04
5. 05 - Section 5 — 33:43
6. 06 - Section 6 — 20:10
7. 07 - Section 7 — 9:06
8. 08 - Section 8 — 22:08
9. 09 - Section 9 — 34:12
10. 10 - Section 10 — 1:01:52
11. 11 - Section 11 — 30:49

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.