The Book Of Negroes: A Novel - Couverture souple

Hill, Lawrence

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 144340909X ISBN 13 : 9781443409094

Editeur : Harper Perennial, 2011

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle—a string of slaves— 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 “Book of Negroes.” 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.

Aminata’s eventual return to Sierra Leone—passing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America—is 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, The Book of Negroes 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.

Revue de presse :

"Hill's novel is a beautiful, compelling artifice,spun from unspeakably savage facts....a fiction that faces the terrible truth about slavery." (The Times)

"Richly meticulous recreation of late 18th century slave life...in its grand historical sweep, The Book of Negroes succeeds admirably in giving voice to a captive people who were for so long kept mute." (Stephen Amidon Sunday Times)

"[Hill] has an easy style and a fine sense of pace that make this a gripping, if horrifying story." (Financial Times)

"A colossal achievement...heartrending yet inspiring." (Independent on Sunday)

"Wears its thorough research lightly...fitting that this ambitious revision of slave narratives should have won the overall Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the year that the American electorate demolished one of its most persistent categories of exclusion." (Independent)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Harper Perennial
• Date d'édition: 2011
• ISBN 10: 144340909X
• ISBN 13: 9781443409094
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 592