Abstract
Barry Unsworth's novel Sacred Hunger (1992) is one of the most notable works of British fiction that deal with the country's involvement in the slave trade in the eighteenth century and its continuing impact. This essay focuses on Sacred Hunger, analyses the historical, postmodern, and socio-critical dimension of the novel, its close links to Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Shakespeare's Tempest, and identifies trends that Unsworth established and that were later employed by other writers who engage with the topic.