Blonde Roots

by Bernardine Evaristo

Book Overview

A provocative and "dizzying satire" (The New Yorker) that "boldly turns history on its head" (Elle) from the Man Booker Prize winning author of Girl, Woman, Other.

What if the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been reversed and Africans had enslaved Europeans? How would that have changed the ways that people justified their inhuman behavior? How would it inform our cultural attitudes and the insidious...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594484341
• ISBN13: 9781594484346
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Penguin Adult Hc/Tr
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Makes you have the conversations you've been avoiding

The evocative, raw, imaginative, and terrifyingly realistic world Bernadine conjures really challenges readers to grapple with the horrors of slavery. By inverting the narrative and refusing to paint the typical colonialist picture of indigenous African cultures as inferior, she forces readers to reflect on how that historical depiction affects minority groups. I encourage everyone to read this as an integral part of the anti-colonialist mindset.

Four months later, I'm still thinking about it

I bought this book after reading the author's interview in the Wall Street Journal. I almost never buy books based on reading things in papers, but I found that I kept thinking about that interview again and again. The book was not what I expected-- the style is much more casual than I'd anticipated, and the sarcastic tone is a bit uncomfortably paired with the brutality of the content. As I was reading it I was not sure if I "liked" it. But four months later, I find that I still think about this book quite often. I now understand the problem that I and perhaps many readers faced, which is that I almost missed a crucial element of the story. Ms. Evaristo created this character and this alternative world even more cleverly than is apparent when you first read the book... by setting the book in MODERN TIMES. Many readers seem to have missed this. But there are many hints in the book that, no, this is NOT taking place in the 19th century, but NOW (or anyway, in an alternative NOW). The (very British) joke of the "underground railroad" being a defunct subway system ought to make that totally clear, even if the reader missed the kids listening to techno music and other modern references. But trust me that this is not ambiguous. I interpret this to be part of the author's alternative history-- that is, since slavery does still exist in parts of contemporary Africa, an alternative-history world where African nations were the enslaving superpowers might as well have those nations still be slaveholding today (as some of their real-life counterparts actually are). In that case, Doris's character and her voice, which feel disconcertingly contemporary, are in fact a very deliberate technique that the author is using to bring an empathy for the experience of slaves to those who are most distant from the experience of slavery. On the surface, this would appear to simply mean "white people." But of course the experience of slavery is thankfully not all that familiar to black people either, or to anyone else-- that is, it is unfamiliar to pretty much any person who might pick up this book, simply because we are living in the 21st century (and since slaves in the Sudan probably don't make it to the bookstore much). So this book is really an act of imaginative empathy in more than the obvious way. I have been surprised by how often I think about this book long after reading it.

Brings the horrors of slavery closer to home

For hundreds of years Europeans carefully cultivated the myth of European invincibility as part of the psychological warfare inherent in militant imperialism. The startling fiction of Blonde Roots should act as a reminder that in fact white Europeans HAVE been enslaved en masse, during the Mediterranean slave trade of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It might certainly bring the horrors of slavery a little closer to home and help engender an empathy for victims too often seen as unfortunate and distant 'others'. It is a reminder that slavery is alive and well and that our common humanity is still undermined by this ancient scourge, and that no one should be allowed to comfortably forget the past and current victims who haunt our modern societies. Well worth a read in conjunction with the BBC's unsettling introduction to 'British Slaves on the Barbary Coast' by Professor Rees Davies.

Blonde Roots is Brilliant

This really is a wonderful book. If a better one is published this year, I'll be amazed. It's got everything: a story that builds and builds so that you can't wait to know what happens next; characters so vividly realized that you feel you know each of them personally and care desperately about what happens to them; an incredible amount of humor, even though its subject matter is far from trivial; and an awareness and understanding of how people behave that challenges and changes how you think. A book about slavery that is funny, lively, makes you cry and provides a completely different slant on what being "black" and "white" actually means - I never thought it could or would be written!

What If?

In Blonde Roots, Benardine Evaristo's latest novel, an alternate universe exists in which Aphrikans (Africans/Blacks) are the dominant race and the slave trade imports Europans (Europeans/Whites). The author has redrawn the map of the world as we know it. A graphical depiction provided in the opening pages shows Londolo, a capital city of the United Kingdom of Great Ambossa, located directly below the equator and immediately off the coast of Aphrika. The puns and acerbic bites of satire are not solely reserved for the cities and kingdoms, the character's names, cultural references and comparisons in art, clothing fashions, language, religion, and courtship are all fair game for clever commentary. The novel opens in the anti-abolitionist offices of The Flame, a pro-slavery publication, printed by Omorenomwara's owner, Chief Kaga Konata Katamba I (note the irony of his initials: KKK). Omorenomwara, a trusted, literate, 30-something year-old slave, is editing the latest issue when given a note informing her that she has been selected to begin her journey back to the Motherland (Europa) via the Underground Railroad. It is then, via a series of flashbacks, that we learn that Omorenomwara is really Doris Scagglethorpe, who spent an idyllic cabbage-farming childhood in an Europan serfdom shared with her parents and three sisters. Innocence is lost when, at age 10 she is snatched by a Viking during a game of Hide-and-Seek and sold to the blaks. While the races maybe reversed in the novel, the horrors, cruelty, and inhumanity of the trade is the same. Doris's recounting of the Middle Passage, enslavement, loss of identity and self-esteem, as a result of her servitude as a playmate to the plantation's spoiled "miracle baby," are aligned and echo actual experiences. Her botched escape, recapture, punishment, and relocation to a sugar cane plantation allows the reader to experience the harsher side of slave life and the ways by which slaves adapted to the back-breaking labor and coped with the inhumanity of it all via song, reverent prayer, inner-strength, and inter-family dependence. Doris's story has some contrived bitter-sweet moments, but I like that the author paved the way for some semblance of happiness for her character. The novel is complete in that it taps the common taboos by covering the gamut of superstitions (both races), nuances in tastes (spicy vs bland foods), perceptions on beauty, etc. While the author attempts to infuse comical anecdotes and witty retorts (some are quite good), the somber subject matter dampens the humor. The Slave Trade is a stain on the fabric of humanity and its waves are still reverberating some 400 years later. This book would be a great educational tool and potentially a great device to kick-start race-related discussions. Reviewed by Phyllis January 25, 2009 APOOO BookClub

intriguing thought provoking alternative history

Doris, an English serf, had heard the horror tales of "Aphrikans" coming to the Gray Continent "Europa" to abduct people so she knows to be cautious though she also wonders if those tales are exaggerated. The daughter of generations of cabbage farmers soon learns the truth when Aphrikans arrive at the coast. They abduct numerous natives including Doris and take them across the vast ocean in substandard conditions to "Amarika." where they are sold into slavery. Former slave runner, Chief Kaga Konata Katamba I buys Doris to work on his sugar plantation. No longer dirtying his hands, Bwana as he expects his property to call him has become part of the elite of polite society. Doris tries her best to avoid slave politics and obey her Bwana though she prays for a future as a free person. When an opportunity arises for her to escape bondage for freedom, Doris decides to take a chance though if caught the punishment is extremely severe as the normally jovial Bwana will not tolerate runaway property. This is an intriguing thought provoking premise that turns history upside down though the theme has been used frequently in literature and movies for instance the film White Man's Burden will hook fans from the onset. The profound story line compares the two lead characters to one another and though anecdotal leads to generalizing their traits as respective of their respective races. Can the seemingly dreary Doris survive outside of the protection of the Aphrikan's burden while the witty seemingly intelligent Bwana relishes his responsibility as the "burden" keeper? Harriet Klausner