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The Book of Negroes cover art

The Book of Negroes

Written by: Lawrence Hill
Narrated by: Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah
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Publisher's Summary

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 United States for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all 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 listener 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.

©2007 Lawrence Hill Creative Services, Inc. (P)2016 Jody Colero for Silent Joe Inc

What listeners say about The Book of Negroes

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Amazing

loved this book, would highly recommend it and seen the TV series but of course is nothing in comparison

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Beautifully told

The narrator was excellent. I loved listening to her voice. Amazing storyteller and an Amazing story .

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Magnificent from start to finish!

Lawrence Hill has outdone himself in this spellbinding book. As a Black woman, I needed to read this book and hear this story, which almost precisely captures historical accounts of the trans-Atlantic crossing of my people and their treatment in the Americas. It elicits from me greater appreciation for and thanks to our ancestors.

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Loved it.

What a most excellent story and ready soo skillfully and beautifully. Well worth the listen.

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Human face to the slave trade

This is the first really political novel that I’ve listened to on audible and I was impressed. The narrator was fantastic and the story does a really good job of balancing the reader/listener’s need for narrative cohesion with a historian’s awareness of the inevitability of loose ends.
What’s interesting is that the anti-abolitionists are not stock-bad-guys. They simply lack empathy and believe that slavery is a natural institution and that it’s not as bad people think. It puts them in the category that Hannah Ardendt called the banality of evil.
The best compliment you can give this type of story is that I learnt truth from the fiction.

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Brilliantly told painful story of our story

It was hard at times to listen to some of the painful things that our people endured to come to North America and the Caribbean but it's important that we never forget our struggles and how far we have come. I would definitely recommend this book to all people.

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Riveting historical fiction

A heart-breaking tale about a woman's life, struggling to survive in an era of slavery. Amazing writing and beautiful performance. (A composition about the human experience that should be social studies content in high schools!)

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One of the best listens to date.

Everyone who's able should hear Mr. Hill's book. Powerful imagery...amazing story line. Perhaps predictable in some spots but that's what keeps one interested. The narration was excellent. I would recommend this to anyone.

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STUNNING

I absolutely cannot get enough of this book I will sit in my vehicle finishing a chapter when I get home just because I need to finish it because it's that good it's like a movie playing in my head absolutely spectacular #Audible1

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Enjoyable Read

I read this book years ago, but listening to Khadijah Roberts-Adbullah the story really comes alive. I was reminded when listening how good of a book this is and how everyone should listen to it.
#Audible1

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