Someone Knows My Name / The Book of Negroes
Lawrence Hill's new novel is published as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, and appears in Canada as The Book of Negroes.
An Excerpt
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?
Reviews
"Lawrence Hill's hugely impressive historical work is completely engrossing and deserves a wide, international readership."
Washington Post, February 26, 2008
"[A] wonderfully written fictional slave narrative…populated by vivid characters and rendered in fascinating detail."
The New York Times, January 20, 2008
"Astonishing in scope, humanity and beauty, this is one of those very rare novels in which the deep joy of reading transcends its time and place...Someone Knows My Name lets readers experience a life, one footstep at a time, beside an unforgettable protagonist."
Editors' Choice, Historical Novels Review, February 2008
"Hill's elegant voice will leave you ... spellbound."
Essence (November Book Club pick)
"Stunning, wrenching and inspiring...Hill's book is a harrowing, breathtaking tour de force."
Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"Hill makes Aminata such a terrific character ... through her curious eyes, a terrifying patch of history comes to vivid life."
Entertainment Weekly
"Hill's third novel, a Canadian bestseller, is a masterful example of historical storytelling, one both heartbreaking and hopeful … An unforgettable epic, seen through the eyes of a sharply realized, indomitable heroine."
Booklist, October 15, 2007
"The Book of Negroes is a masterpiece, daring and impressive in its geographic, historical and human reach, convincing in its narrative art and detail, necessary for imagining the real beyond the traces left by history."
The Globe and Mail
"Aminata is a heroic figure, a little larger than life, residing within and outside of history. You can never forget this character. She embeds herself in your heart."
The Toronto Star
"Anna Karenina. Hagar Shipley. Aminata Diallo....the exclusive club that includes literature's most memorable characters now has a remarkable new member."
The Calgary Herald
"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
"Hill's engaging narrator and the scope of her trajectory make this novel a truly compelling read. It is, however, Hill's ability to observe the multi-faceted issue of race with sensitivity, compassion and a keen sense of justice, that makes The Book of Negroes not just a good book, but a great one — worthy of every honour it is sure to receive."
The Montreal Gazette
"Hill's gift to readers, in the present and the future, is that he not only creates one of the most extraordinary female characters ever to live in a novel, he also makes visible — and vivid — the reality of historical events in an individual life."
The Chronicle Herald
"Somewhere around page 389 of Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes, I realized I had become so completely engrossed in his masterful telling of the hard life and crueler times of Aminata Diallo that I had forgotten I was reading a novel. But I was. And it is a brilliant one...Aminata is an amazing literary creation."
Literary Review of Canada