The Book Of Negroes : A Novel by Lawrence Hill š
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592 pages
Commonwealth Writers Prize, Caribbean and Canada
CBC Canada Reads
OLA Evergreen Award
Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffleāa string of slavesā Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic āBook of Negroes.ā This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own.
Aminataās eventual return to Sierra Leoneāpassing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for Americaāis an engrossing account of an obscure but important chapter in history that saw 1,200 former slaves embark on a harrowing back-to-Africa odyssey. Lawrence Hill is a master at transforming the neglected corners of history into brilliant imaginings, as engaging and revealing as only the best historical fiction can be. A sweeping story that transports the reader from a tribal African village to a plantation in the southern United States, from the teeming Halifax docks to the manor houses of London,Ā The Book of NegroesĀ introduces one of the strongest female characters in recent Canadian fiction, one who cuts a swath through a world hostile to her colour and her sex.
PUBLISHER: Harper Perennial (October 18, 2011)
FORMAT: Paperback
