Among the earliest published literature by African Americans were slave narratives – autobiographical accounts of the lives of slaves who lived primarily in the American South in the early to mid-1800s. These accounts – which included letters, notes, and diaries – often discussed escapes, slave auctions, interactions with plantation owners and abolitionists, and the forced separation of family members, often parents and children. Some of the best-known slave narratives were written by Josiah Henson and Frederick Douglass. In the last three decades, a renewed awareness of the lives of enslaved African Americans has prompted a wave of novels and biographies, sometimes called "neo-slave narratives," in which modern writers such as Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler offer a historical or fictional representation of the lives of slaves.