The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill is our book selection for the month of January, 2009.
This book seems a perfect choice for our inaugural online book conversation, considering the recent historic election of President-elect Barack Obama, the first African American to be elected as President of the United States.
Lawrence Hill, a Canadian author, is the son of a black father and a white mother who came to Canada after they were married in 1953. Hill has written a thought-provoking novel about Aminato Diallo, an 11 year old child who was stolen from her home in an African village by slave traders. Loaded onto a slave ship, then dumped onto an island off the shore of South Carolina and sold to the owner of an indigo plantation, Aminato survives partially by her innate ability to learn to read and write.
Better than any words I can write, the author has created this reading guide for book clubs and has posted it on his website. It tells of his writing process for this amazing book and how he chose the main character's name.
This guide also has an excellent description of how the British army gave 3000 African American former slaves a chance at freedom in the eastern province of Nova Scotia, in return for serving a year in the British army.
The Book of Negroes is an actual living document, a 150-page military ledger that recorded the names of those 3000 people who set sail for Nova Scotia in the last half of 1783.
I'll leave you to read these words of Aminato Diallo, now an older woman, as she reminisces about her life...
"Let me begin with a caveat to any and all who find these pages. Do not trust large bodies of water, and do not cross them. If you, Dear Reader, have an African hue and find yourself led toward water with vanishing shores, seize your freedom by any means necessary. And cultivate distrust of the colour pink. Pink is taken as the colour of innocence, the colour of childhood, but as it spills across the water in the light of the dying sun, do not fall into its pretty path.
There, right underneath, lies a bottomless graveyard of children, mothers and men. I shudder to imagine all the Africans rocking in the deep. Every time I have sailed the seas, I have had the sense of gliding over the unburied.
Some people call the sunset a creation of extraordinary beauty, and proof of God's existence. But what benevolent force would bewitch the human spirit by choosing pink to light the path of a slave vessel?" ~ Aminata Diallo, 'The Book of Negroes' Brenda
Someone Knows My Name, the title that The Book of Negroes is published under in the U.S., New Zealand and Australia, has a couple of different covers. Here is some information if you wish to purchase this book...or add it to your Christmas Wish List!
"What Barry Unsworth did for the Middle Passage in Sacred Hunger, so does Lawrence Hill for the suffering of slaves in The Book of Negroes/Someone Knows My Name. To be reminded of this nightmare is to be reminded of the collective inhumanity of those who rationalize deeds to serve the god of profit. More importantly, Aminata celebrates the extraordinary courage of the human spirit in the face of evil." ~ CurledUp Brenda
Yay, Ginger! I think you're going to love this story. The author, Lawrence Hill, makes his main character, Aminato Diallo, so real that I had to keep reminding myself that this was a novel, not a biography!
He named the main character in this book after his own daughter. He writes about visiting an African village and meeting a fantastic midwife who became the model for the 'babycatcher' in the book. Then he thought how staggering it would be if his own daughter who was 11 at the time, was stolen from this village in Africa and sold into slavery. That created the kernel of the story that he tells in this book.
Here's a review to consider: "In Aminata Diallo, who evolves from stolen village child to the conscience of abolition, writer Lawrence Hill has crafted one of the most memorable female characters in Canadian fiction.... And here's how readers will come to know this — Aminata tends to linger long after the book's been finished and put aside....The Book of Negroes is thoughtful, stirring, saddening, resplendent and joyful. It's an evocative tome, and among the best in our fiction." ~ The Hamilton Spectator
Here is a quote from the author about his idea for this book: "My daughter, Geneviève Aminata Hill, was eleven years old when I started to write this story. The same age as my character when she is kidnapped by slave traders. What if this had happened to my own child? Aminata, the character, grew up under my tutelage. She learned to walk and then to read and to navigate her way in the world, and now this fictional creation of mine is all grown up and gone from the house. She belongs to the world of readers now, and I hope she will be well loved." Brenda
Hi, Ginger! It really is a stunning read...happy to hear you are already liking it!
I think that posting here as we are reading can encourage other booklovers to put this on their wish lists for Christmas. So, let the discussion begin! Everyone who is thinking about reading this book or who is actually reading it now, please feel free to join in and share this online conversation, as we read the book that Lawrence Hill has placed in our hands.
Remember, if you are giving away the end or talking about something that would spoil the book for others, use our fancy-dancy CRC spoiler warning, though! S P O I L E R !!!
The Black Loyalists Heritage Society was formed to preserve and document the history of those who took the British ships to Nova Scotia, only to find out that there was nothing for them there. Unlike what the British military promised them, there was nothing for them to live in, nothing for them to eat and very little for them to do to earn a living. Life was very difficult for the people who gave the British army a year of their service in exchange for freedom in Nova Scotia.
There is an actual Book of Negroes. It has been published in its entire format on this website for the first time online. There are 3 copies of this document that are located in 3 different locations across the continent: one in England, at the Public Records Office in Kew; one in the United States, at the National Archives in Washington; and one in Canada, at the Nova Scotia Archives located in Halifax.
Here's some cool information from the author that is posted on the Norton book club page of his website: "As I began to write this book, I imagined the life of an old woman on one of those vessels carrying liberated African Americans from Halifax to Freetown. What would she look like? Where had she been born in Africa? How had she been stolen into slavery, where had she lived in South Carolina, and how on earth did she find herself, in late life, sailing back to Africa from Canada?
The Book of Negroes/Someone Knows My Name is my attempt to give this fascinating but little-known story a human face. I gave the protagonist, Aminata Diallo, my eldest daughter's middle name. It is the story of a heroic woman in the eighteenth century, and I felt that the best way to lift her off the page was to love her like I love my own daughter. And indeed I loved Aminata from the moment I first started imagining her face, hearing her voice, seeing the way she walked with a platter balanced on her head." ~ Lawrence Hill Brenda
How do others feel about a target date for the book discussions to begin? This may help prevent spoilers, and would still encourage reading of the thread.
I can't help but think that if I'm still reading the book, but there are spoiler alerts interspersed on the thread before our "target" date for discussing it, then I will be discouraged from reading the thread at all.
I also think it would give the discussions a greater sense of cohesion and calm if they began at a certain date. Again, these are just my opinions. How do others feel?
BTW, Brenda I like that photo of what looks like may be an old original.
Hi, Terry, That photo of the book is from the Black Loyalists website. I'm not sure if it is a photo of the original book, but it looks intriguing, doesn't it?
Thanks for your thoughts...I understand what you are saying about spoiler alerts in a thread. I think that most people won't give away the end of the book, so I'm not worried about many of those showing up.
We had a good talk in chat about the need to open the book conversation to everyone who wants to join us, making it more available to more people. Some people who want to participate in the book chat cannot make it for various reasons...work, family commitments and life in general. The current specific time and date for a monthly book chat doesn't work for everyone. We'll still hold the monthly chat to finish the conversation on this forum about the book, though.
We hope that by making this an open format, people can now stop by and post their thoughts and comments at their convenience, whether that is today or next week, morning, noon or night. I don't see this forum as a replacement for the monthly book chat, but rather it is meant to be an extension and enhancement of that. So, to that end, I'd like to go with a totally open format for now, and see how that works. We can always revisit it, if it needs changing later on.
Have you ordered your copy from you library yet, Terry? I actually bought my own copy, because it's a book I want to keep! Now I need to get a couple of his other books, because I love his writing style and the easy flow of the language in the story. I didn't want this story to end...i was rationing myself to a chapter at a time to make it last longer!
"The original Book of Negroes measures about a foot-and-a-half by a foot-and-a-half and runs just over 150 pages. Though known to just a handful of scholars, this remarkable hand-written ledger is a historical treasure." ~ Lawrence Hill, in this interview with CBC Brenda
Oops, I forgot about the chat! Okay, let's see how our new format works. Yes, I did order the book from Amazon - I'm quite excited about reading it, too.
Unbelievable, isn't it, Ginger? I cannot believe that some person somewhere way back in time had the twisted and sick idea that stealing children, parents and grandparents from their homes and selling them to other people just as sick and twisted as the seller would be a good thing to do. I have no words to describe how I feel about that, actually. The horror of it is just too much to comprehend. Maybe it's because I didn't live it, that there's no point of reference for me...all I know is that the only feelings I have about it is horror and revulsion that this actually happened, and worse, is still happening in areas of this planet.
The cool thing about this character and the story about her life is the way she survives and how she shines, in spite of what happened to her...so keep reading, Ginger. There are so many spots of glorious sunshine throughout the book, I promise!
"Nurtured by loving parents in rural Mali, Aminata, unusual for the time, was educated in reading and the Qur'an by her father and learned the skill of "catching babies" from her midwife mother. Hill's familiarity with places and cultures of different peoples in West Africa gives the depiction of village life and tradition vivacity and veracity. At age eleven, during a raid on the village, the young girl is seized by African slavers and forced to join many others on the long, hard road into slavery. The memory of her parents, killed during the attack, gives her strength and guidance throughout her ordeal. Her beauty and intelligence combined with her midwifery skills, help her to stay alive during the dangerous passage to North America and for the next decades, sold as property to different more or less abusive owners." ~ Amazon review Brenda
I bought the book today and can't wait to start reading. I went to the Barnes & Noble website last night, reserved it for my local store, and picked it up today with a nice discount on the price. How easy was that?
Yay, Nancy! That WAS easy...good for you! Let us know what you think, once you've started reading this book.
I've also e-mailed all of my local book club members and suggested that they check us out and see what this new book club forum looks like. So if you are reading this, my Fox Creek book club peeps, post here and say 'Hi!' and tell us why you loved this book so much!
Here's something that is too cool for words... I Googled Aminato Diallo, looking for a quote for the end of this post, and I found this link to KIVA, which is a site that I've supported for a few years, and have made over 20 loans to entrepreneurs around the world. Check this link out! There is a woman on the KIVA site who is working to pay back her loan and her name is...Aminato Diallo. What's more amazing is that she is from MALI, the location that Lawrence Hill's character was from in The Book of Negroes. Wow! That's what I call flow!!!
"Turning the pages of Hill's book is effortless in one sense and very difficult in another. Protagonist Aminata Diallo's desire for freedom is unquenchable, her drive inspiring and superhuman. The losses she experiences, however, are just as potent as her will. Brief joys of love and family are suffocated by mourning time and time again. Some scenes approach the threshold of heartache plausible for one soul to bear, requiring Hill to find or create a new purpose for Aminata's fight for life and freedom to continue. Most often, her rare literacy and gift for languages is her saving grace, offering a welcome nod to the power of reading and writing to change a life – or the direction of an entire nation." ~ Stacey Rae Brownlie Brenda
Good idea, Ginger! Do you know how to create this kind of map? I don't have a clue how to do it.
However, here's a link to a map of Africa, so you can see the location of the Mali area. It's so interesting to me to find a woman with the same name as the character in The Book of Negroes, from the same area in Africa as she was from. I was speechless when I opened the link to the KIVA site! Simply amazing, isn't it?
" Lawrence Hill came upon the idea for The Book of Negroes in a book he borrowed from his parents about 20 years ago. The Black Loyalists, written by historian James Walker and published in 1980, tells how black Americans settled in Nova Scotia after serving the British in the Revolutionary War. Walker described how many of these men and women later abandoned harsh racism in Nova Scotia for life in Sierra Leone. Canada, Hill learned, was home to the world’s first “back to Africa” movement. What most captured his imagination, however, was this single, astonishing fact: A number of the blacks traveling to Sierra Leone had originally been born in Africa.
“Wow! What a story,” Hill recalls thinking at the time. “What kind of person – what kind of woman – might have lived in such a way as to be born in Africa, shipped into slavery in the United States, made it up to Canada, and then chose voluntarily to go back to Africa? I was very impressed by the idea.” ~ Quill and Quire review Brenda
LOL!! No I don't know how to do anything on the computer.
I see that Mali is part of the Sahara, but I would think in the 18th century it was not so. The Sahara has expanded expontentially in the 20th century.
I wonder which way she walked and what port she sailed out of.
Here's another thread about The Book of Negroes. Lawrence Hill has written a captivating story, and it is amazing to me that he captures the personality of this darling young girl so well, taking her through the many different phases of her life and wrapping her story up, as her life as an older woman is winding down.
I'm a sucker for a well-written book, and it isn't necessary for it to have a strong storyline or great character development. I can overlook all of that if the writer has the skills and the tenacity to keep the story moving along at a good speed without segueing into a labyrinth of side stories.
Mr. Hill does this with perfection in this book. There's just enough softness in the storyline to keep it from becoming horrendous to read because of the pain and suffering brought onto the young child as she passes from a little girl to an adult woman. I expected this, and was really wary of reading it at first.
Now, after I've finished reading it, I would recommend it for anyone interested in a book that wraps you up and takes you on a journey through the life of Aminato Diallo. What a great journey it is!
"You feel you are turning the pages of history, the pages of truth." ~ Austin Clarke Brenda
Up to page 186... I can't believe that all the plantation owners treated their property in such a cruel wasteful manner. Surely they weren't all sadistic rapists/murderers.
Slaves were valuable assets. It would be like going out and buying a brand new car and then trashing it deliberately. It just doesn't make economic sense.
And the same with the slavers, why go to all the trouble to capture them, herd them for months, feed them, and then lose 3/4's of your cargo?
I'm not defending the abomination of slavery, but were the planation owners so wealthy they could afford to destroy the very thing that made them rich? And were there so many Africans to capture that the supply was endless?
Yay, Terry! I'm looking forward to hearing how you like it.
Ginger, the same question we asked each other about this book at my book club meeting a couple of weeks ago...how could they? Stunning.
We also talked about who first had the idea to steal people from one country and sell them to people in another? And, we also asked each other whatever would make anyone think that this was acceptable in any corner of this world?
Here is a link to one person's thoughts about the origin of slavery.
"I first heard about the Book of Negroes in 1980 when I read The Black Loyalists, a scholarly book by Canadian historian James Walker. Even before I wrote my first novel, Some Great Thing, which was published in 1992, I knew that one day I would write the fictional story of a woman who had to have her name entered into the Book of Negroes. It wasn’t until I began to research and write the novel in 2002, however, that I examined reproductions of the actual ledger. The research and writing took about five years." ~ Lawrence Hill, on his process for writing The Book of Negroes Brenda
I can't put this book down and read until 1:15 AM the first night. Brenda's comments about the book and author Hill's writing skills are completely accurate. A "must read".
One of the most interesting things I learned from reading this book is about the existence of Certificates of Freedom for the African people who were leaving slavery after having served a year in the British Army. It was a way to prove that the people bearing them had the right to be free, the right to leave for Nova Scotia.
A log book was created to list all of the freed slaves evacuating the city and this log was called Carleton's Book of Negroes. Here is a link to the Black Loyalist Society's information about these certificates.
Here are a few reviews to read, if you are still thinking about reading this book. Hopefully, these will convince you to give it a try!
Text from a Certificate of Freedom: "New York, 21 April 1783 This is to certify to whomsoever if may concern, that the Bearer hereof Cato Hamanday a Negro, resorted to the British lines, in consequence of the Proclamations of Sir William Howe, and Sir Henry Clinton, late Commanders in Chief in America; and that the said Negro has hereby his Excellency Sir Guy Carleton's Permission to go to Nova Scotia, or wherever else he may think proper." ~ By Order of Brigadier General Birch Brenda
I saw this segment on Oprah a few days ago, Ginger. Pretty cool stuff! I love the way Will Smith describes his family sitting down with him to watch President-elect Obama's acceptance speech. He insisted that his family sit with him and watch with him, and they were a part of this monumental event. He's a good dad, I think!
There is an amazing connect between our reading The Book of Negroes at the same time as the election of the first African American President has happened. Reading this book brings it into crystal-clear perspective for me...without the hundreds of thousands of African people who were stolen from their country and sold as slaves, dehumanizing them to become common property, there would be no Barack Obama to be elected President. What a painful price for those 300,000 people to pay who were sold into slavery to bring the country to this moment. He truly stands on the shoulders of hundreds of thousands of others.
This review is another person's perspective. Hope it gives you another look at Lawrence Hill's book.
Here's one of Lawrence Hills' answers to a question about his research process and the books he read to learn about the subject of his book: "The most interesting thing was reading first-person accounts by black people and by Europeans who were living in the time. I read every single memoir I could find from the period. One in particular, which was published in 1789, was by Olaudah Equiano. He was an African who was kidnapped as a child, like Aminata, and taken to the Americas and got free over time. The book made him very famous in London when he published it. He wrote about seeing his breath in the cold for the first time and he thought his mouth was on fire. That was a fascinating detail, which I borrowed and used in the book." ~ Lawrence Hill Brenda
This is a thought-provoking interview with Lawrence Hill. I often wondered why this book has 2 titles, one in Canada, The Book of Negroes; one in Australia and the U.S., Some Knows My Name. This article is very explicit about the author's publishers requesting that he change the title from The Book of Negroes to Someone Knows My Name. What do you think of this reason for a publisher insisting on a change of title?
Did you know that the author, Lawrence Hill, is Dan Hill's brother? How totally cool is that? I love Dan Hill's music! My favorite is Sometimes When We Touch. I know, I know..it's old, but it's still a stunning piece of music. Just listen and read along with the lyrics, if you like. A glorious piece of music!
"As the war ended, Loyalists of all colours were forced to flee the United States. Some went to England, others to Florida and the West Indies, but most went to the North American Colonies to the north, in what is now Canada. All the Loyalists had lost a great deal: their property, their careers, and often their families. But the Black Loyalists faced the most uncertain future of all, not knowing whether their very freedom might suddenly be taken away from them. Indeed, for many this is exactly what happened. Some were callously abandoned to the Patriots or even sold in the West Indies by the British, or traded for White Loyalist prisoners. Others were seized by their former masters as they waited for transport to Nova Scotia." ~ Black Loyalists Society Brenda
I am just absolutely fascinated by this novel. It amazes how one human being can be that cruel and ignorant towards another human being. Everytime, I can not help crying when reading this book, it is very very well written and speaks to the heart directly. I am loving it.( Just about to start the second section). Thank you all for the great suggestion.
Candi, I'm so delighted you love the book! I was blown away by his writing style and by his ability to draw me into this novel and actually believe that it is a real person telling a real story, rather than fiction. Amazing story, isn't it?
My heart was breaking for Aminato Diallo, and yet she just kept moving on, moving on. What else could she do? A stunning piece, with a story line that I absolutely love.
"I missed the opportunity to see Hill speak last year around this time, and I literally cried, I was so disappointed. The Book of Negroes stands as an impressive achievement of fiction. Slave narratives, both fictional and autobiographical, are one of my main areas of interest, and this one is well worth studying. I can see myself including this in the doctoral dissertation I eventually hope to start." ~ Beyond the Degrees Blog Brenda
An image of a page from the actual book as posted on CBC's site for the program, Who Do You Think You Are?
Happy New Year, book lovers! Here is a piece that is interesting about the author's life while growing up in a rural suburb of Toronto: This is a compelling article from Larry Hill's book, Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. He puts into words the feelings he grew up with, of not being black and not being white. The most interesting thing to me is that he shares how he often felt black but he never never felt white, in spite of having one parent black and one white. His parents moved to Canada to live in what they felt would be a more tolerant racial atmosphere. They settled in a white neighbourhood and this article deals with the reality for Larry and his siblings growing up in this area of the country.
Review in the NY Times: "Wonderfully written ... In Someone Knows My Name, as in the slave narratives that inspired it, language is power. The slave owner marks the bodies of those he owns, but when the enslaved take Brenda
Concentric Reading Circle Book Club meets in a week... Wow! That went faster than a speeding bullet! I can't believe it is almost here, already.
I have a few interesting items for you, if you are reading The Book of Negroes, or if you are thinking about reading this glorious book:
~ The author, Lawrence Hill, was going to call the book, Migrations. Then, he found out more about the actual Book of Negroes, 3 copies of which reside in 3 separate museums and institutions, and decided that the name of that book had the exact timbre and strength that the story of Aminato Diallo required. One copy of the original Book of Negroes is in England, at the Public Records Office, Kew; one in the United States, at the National Archives, Washington; and one in Canada, at the Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax.
~ He also wrote a memoir, Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada, and this book tells the story of his parents...a black father and a white mother...who came to Canada to live in a more racially-tolerant society. They lived in an otherwise totally white Toronto suburb and this book examines the often-ignored and unspoken tension that existed for the children in the family while living in their neighbourhood.
"Hill came upon the idea for The Book of Negroes in a book he borrowed from his parents about 20 years ago. The Black Loyalists, written by historian James Walker and published in 1980, tells how black Americans settled in Nova Scotia after serving the British in the Revolutionary War.
Walker described how many of these men and women later abandoned harsh racism in Nova Scotia for life in Sierra Leone. Canada, Hill learned, was home to the world’s first “back to Africa” movement. What most captured his imagination, however, was this single, astonishing fact: A number of the blacks traveling to Sierra Leone had originally been born in Africa." ~ Quill and Quire Brenda
I finished it yesterday. For the most part it was a great read, however, I felt he didn't do justice to the ending. It felt rushed and kinda of like "okay how do I end this?"
Thanks Brenda for the fun info. I fnished the book last week, and absolutely loved it. I could not stop thinking about it even when I was not reading, isn't that weird??? I found myself at work or home discussng the novel and the history facts with people around me, of course me stirring up conversations. Everyone I know is either reading this book now or have it ordered. My husband was surprised, he said it is like the first time you ever read a book. I always read, and read many good books,but I guess it is the first time that I am actually truly attached to the character and story. I disagree about the ending, I thought it is the best end to this story,I am not sure what Hill could have done with it other than what he did. It worked for me.
I see what you mean Ginger. But I was at peace with Aminata's ending,she did live a very hard life, and it was time for her to rest and lay her burden on someone else. She has done more than her share of worrying and fighting, I believe. And as far as May goes, yes, there is not much details about how her life will be like, but this could be a whole other book, could it not???( I will read it)!
Ginger, I was very touched by the ending, thought that the author gave Aminata a graceful later life and a very tender end to her life. I thought she was simply worn out, totally spent after all of her trials and hardships. I also think her daughter's story would make an excellent next novel. Just think about the changes that May would see in the world, compared to the world as seen through her mother's eyes.
Candi, I agree, a second book! And, I also agree...I'd read it, for sure!
So, we're only a few sleeps from book chat on Sunday, January 18th at 2:00 Mountain Standard Time, and we'll be in the Gold Star Chat Room.
If, like Ginger and Candi, Nancy and Panda, you've been reading this month's selection, don't forget to stop by! If you haven't read it yet, stop in anyway. We're looking forward to a good discussion about this very timely book.
Lawrence Hill has a great book club section on his website, if you haven't read through it, here's the link. This reader's guide is posted by the publisher, so you'll notice that the title of the book appearing on this reader's guide is Someone Knows My Name, and not the more familiar The Book of Negroes.
The first question in the reader's guide, "What is the significance of the title Someone Knows My Name?" seems superfluous to me, because the actual document that the book is written about is called The Book of Negroes. There is definite significance to the name of the original document, and it seems like a very watered-down title that the publisher insisted upon using, over-riding the author's choice. Can you tell that I'm more than a little unhappy at the name change?
“My parents were great storytellers, and they always interwove the most painful, oppressive stories with rollicking, raucous humour. It’s a very common survival strategy for oppressed people, whether they’re black, Jewish, Russian – that combination of horror and humour. My parents taught me the emotional saving grace of humour.” ~ Lawrence Hill Brenda
I also felt that the ending was a little abrupt and wanted to hear more about May. Perhaps we should petition the author for a second book - he'd probably love it!
Finished, finished - and I've made some notes for Sunday.
The ending struck a bit of a false note to me- May finding her. Rather a slushy, unlikely, filmic ending, which did not really fit in with the tone of the rest of the book - I could almost hear the swelling music. Only a small criticism.
Posts: 1400 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 20 September 2006
I wish I could be there for the chat today, but unfortuantlry I can't I 'll be there in spirit though Loved the book. Can't wait to see what you all thought of it. Brenda, is the chat going be posted somewhere for someone to check it out later?
I'll edit the transcript and post it here, on the Announcements and on Everything Else, I think. This Book Forum is brand-new, so let me check and see where we'll be posting it. But, for sure, you'll have a chance to read it! Thanks for reading along with us, Candi!
"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed on and digested." ~ Francis Bacon
Slow Travel Talk 
I 'll be there in spirit though 
