The Book of Negroes

Aminata Diallo, who was kidnapped from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, dreams only of freedom—and the knowledge she needs to return home. Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War after being sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence. Aminata works in Manhattan on the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for their service to the king with safe passage to Nova Scotia. Aminata discovers a life of hardship and stinging prejudice there. When British abolitionists arrive in Sierra Leone looking for "adventurers," Aminata assists in moving 1,200 Nova Scotians to Africa and aiding the abolitionist cause by exposing the realities of slavery to the British public. This enthralling account of one woman's extraordinary journey spans six decades and three continents, bringing to life an important chapter in world history.

Aminata is transformed into a master storyteller over the course of this epic novel. She tells the incredible story of her incredible journey from Africa to America and back. Along the way, a stop in Nova Scotia sheds light on a long-forgotten chapter in Canadian history.

Aminata's autobiography — or "ghost story," as she calls it — begins with her idyllic childhood in West Africa. At the age of 11, she is kidnapped, placed in chains, transported across the sea, and forced into slavery on an indigo plantation in South Carolina. But Aminata is a survivor, and this is just one chapter in her extraordinary life. Aminata discovers, in a fitting twist for a book featured on Canada Reads, that literacy may be her ticket to a new life.

Lawrence Hill's compelling blend of history and fiction won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize in 2007 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book in 2008.

Author: Lawrence Hill

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Hill-Book-Negroes-Paperback/dp/B00SCV986Q/ref=mp_s_a_1_2