The book of Negroes
Hill, Lawrence200901UU
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Tells the story of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali aged 11 in 1755, and who, after a deathly journey on a slave ship where she witnesses the brutal repression of a slave revolt, is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes her. This work manages to use her story to bring the harrowing chapter in our history. Based on a true story, "The Book of Negroes" tells the story of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali aged 11 in 1755, and who, after a deathly journey on a slave ship where she witnesses the brutal repression of a slave revolt, is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes her. She is brought to New York, where she escapes her owner, and finds herself helping the British by recording all the freed slaves on the British side in the Revolutionary War in The Book of Negroes (a real historical document that can be found today at the National Archives at Kew).Aminata is sent to Nova Scotia to start a new life, but finds more hostility, oppression and tragedy. Separated from her one true love, and suffering the unimaginable loss of both her children who are taken away from her, she eventually joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing odyssey back to Africa, and ends up in London as a living icon for Wilberforce and the other Abolitionists. "The Book of Negroes" is a pageturning narrative that manages to use Aminata's heart-rending personal story to bring to life a harrowing chapter in our history.
Main title:
The book of Negroes / Lawrence Hill.
Author:
Imprint:
London : Doubleday : [distributor] Transworld Publishers Ltd : [distributor] Random House Australia : [distributor] Random House New Zealand Ltd : [distributor] Booksite Afrika, 2009.
Collation:
496 p.
Notes:
Hardback.
Biography/History:
Lawrence Hill was born in Ontario, Canada of a black father and a white mother. He is the author of a memoir, Black Berry, Sweet Juice, a work of non-fiction, The Deserter's Tale, and two other novels. His third novel, The Book of Negroes (published in the US as Somebody Knows My Name) was a no.1 bestseller in Canada, and won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book.
Awards:
Winner of Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best Book 2008Shortlisted for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2009.
ISBN:
9780385616263 (hbk)0385616260 (hbk)
Dewey class:
AF
Local class:
FICF
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
484635