WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH PRIZE FOR FICTION
Based on a true story, Lawrence Hill’s epic novel spans three continents and six decades to bring to life a dark and shameful chapter in our history through the story of one brave and resourceful woman.

Abducted from her West African village at the age of eleven and sold as a slave in the American South, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom – and of finding her way home again.

After escaping the plantation, torn from her husband and child, she passes through Manhattan in the chaos of the Revolutionary War, is shipped to Nova Scotia, and then joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing return odyssey to Africa.

The Book Of Negroes is an incredibly moving story which draws you in right from the first page when we are introduced to Aminata, an eleven-year-old Muslim girl who can read the Quran and is already an accomplished midwife – not the naked savage which was how the peoples of Africa were described in a perverted excuse for the slave trade. Firmly rooted in historical fact, Mr Hill enables the reader to discover more about a multitude of aspects of life for those who were torn from their homes and sold into slavery. This is a compelling story moving from freedom in Africa to the indigo plantations of the New World, from initial freedom in New York to failed promises by the British in Nova Scotia and on the exodus back to Africa; and the character of Aminata is a believable and compekking companion on our journey.

The Book of Negroes in the title is an actual historical document and is the largest single document about black people in North America up until the eighteenth century. Containing the names and details of 3,000 black people who received freedom from the British at the end of the American War of Independence, Mr Hill has utilised this document as a source for the characters who people this novel. Some of these characters are real historical individuals, but the fictional ones are also totally believable as they are well drawn, both physically and emotionally, and give an insight into the traumatic lives that these people lived. The dialogue is also strong and believable, which allows the story to develop and flow realistically.

The author has great skill at descriptive prose, and the reader cannot fail to be moved by the beautiful rendering of the land or the visceral horrors of the Atlantic crossing, the contrasting life on slave plantations and in the city, the clothes and food of the different strata of society. But, above all, this is a beautiful and compelling, dark and harrowing, totally engrossing story of the slave trade.

As the world begins to openly face the history of slavery, I believe that The Book Of Negroes is a must read for all.

The Book Of Negroes can be found on Amazon

You can find out more about Lawrence Hill here

You can find more of my Recommended Reads here