Is the mystery behind the first 'African-American author' solved?

When a mysterious book The Bondwoman’s Narrative was published in 2002, the work, which turned out as a best seller was regarded as the first written by an African-American woman.

The Bondwoman's Narrative, Beineke Library, Yale University

But as the author of the book remained unknown, last week, a professor of English in South Carolina, Gregg Hecimovich came up with what he argues as the name of the author. Hecimovich, according to a source has disclosed that after several years of research ‘discovered the novelist’s name: Hannah Bond, a slave on a North Carolina plantation owned by John Hill Wheeler, is the actual writer of “The Bondwoman’s Narrative,” the book signed by Hannah Crafts.

Hecimovich,  who is the chairman of the English department at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., it’s said has uncovered previously unknown details about Bond’s life that have shed light on how the novel was possibly written. READ MORE.