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In the Chatham Islands, 1849, American lawyer Adam Ewing witnesses the whipping of a Moriori slave, Autua. Autua stows away on Ewing's ship and convinces him to advocate for Autua to join the crew as a free man. Autua saves Ewing's life before his doctor, Henry Goose, can poison him and steal his gold under the guise of treating him for a parasitic worm. In San Francisco, Ewing and his wife denounce her father's complicity in slavery and leave to join the abolition movement.
In 1936, English composer Robert Frobisher finds work as an amanuensis to aging composer Vyvyan Ayrs, allowing Frobisher to compose his own masterpiece, "The Cloud Atlas Sextet"; Frobisher reads Ewing's journal among... |