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Someone Knows My Name

Lawrence Hill

Start date: March 1, 2016

Finish date: March 31, 2016

Discussion: Someone Knows My Name

Discussion leader: Darlene

Why we're reading this: Book Club Pick - Sounds really good -
Host: Pam Aguilar Lett
[close] Book Club Pick - Sounds really good -
Host: Pam Aguilar Lett

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Showing 2 of 4 topics — 63 comments total

Someone Knows My Name

Race Card
By Pam · 11 posts · 7 views

last updated Mar 27, 2016 07:35PM

What's in a Name?
By Pam · 15 posts · 8 views

last updated Mar 25, 2016 05:51PM

What Members Thought

Mar 12, 2016 M.E. Hembroff rated it it was amazing

Lawrence Hill takes you through the many stages of Aminata's life. As I read the book I could feel the anguish Aminata went through the demands of her captures. She is strong even as a young girl and manages to survive the trip. Just as it appears that she is going to make it something happens to change everything again. She snatches moments of happiness when she can but is always faced with tough choices. You can't help but cheer for Aminata as she faces the everyday challenges and hope for her ...more

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Jan 22, 2016 Carol Jones-Campbell rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club-pick

Decided to do a second listen to Pam's book. I'm about 30% in and am remembering and learning stuff I hadn't remembered. Really good book!!!

It's 1802 and Aminata Diallo, now an old woman, sits down to write her life story at the request of the Abolitionists in London. Abducted from her village in West Africa at the age of eleven and marched in a coffle (a string of slaves) for three months before reaching the coast, Aminata survives the voyage to America and ends up sold to an indigo plantation Decided to do a second listen to Pam's book. I'm about 30% in and am remembering and learning stuff I hadn't remembered. Really good book!!!

It's 1802 and Aminata Diallo, now an old woman, sits down to write her life story at the request of the Abolitionists in London. Abducted from her village in West Africa at the age of eleven and marched in a coffle (a string of slaves) for three months before reaching the coast, Aminata survives the voyage to America and ends up sold to an indigo plantation owner in South Carolina. She describes herself as lucky, because compared to the tragic circumstances and end of so many other black slaves, Aminata manages to survive using her wits, her skills as a midwife, her ability to pick up new skills quickly, and her strength of character.

She does not succumb to anger or hatred; she wants only to be together with her husband, Chekura, and their children, who are all taken from her.

When Britain surrenders to the rebels they keep their promise to the Black Loyalists - in a way. With a certificate proving they have worked behind British lines for at least a year, they can sign their name in the Book of Negroes and be given passage to a British colony. Most are sent to Nova Scotia, including Aminata.

The Book of Negroes is a powerful story on many fronts: it's a very human story, sympathetic, honest, thought-provoking, poignant.

One of the beautiful things about this book is as a reader, you feel more in tune with the Africans, while the whites seem strange, alien, bewildering, contradictory.
Hill has done an admirable job of completely immersing us in the 18th century, creating a protagonist who is a product of the time as much as one of circumstance. Hill has managed to write a convincing, wonderful female protagonist - frankly, not many male writers are this successful. Aminata is unflinchingly honest with herself and others, and by being so thoroughly in her head, she gives us what the Africans needed most during slavery: a voice, the understanding that she's just like us.

The book is thoroughly researched and historically accurate, and makes no bones about Africans enslaving each other well before the white people came, and it is Africans who capture Aminata, kill her parents, torch her village, and sell her to the white slavers. Slavery has a long, long history, and no race, it seems, is exempt.

Cruelty exists everywhere, and cannot be simply attributed to your race, though neither can it be excused. This is why I insist that the history of black slavery - while it existed predominantly between the British slaving companies and the Americas - is everyone's history.

It's also beautifully written. Aminata has a simple, honest style, without embellishment or fanciful detail. She rarely passes judgement, but offers her own thoughts and perspective subtly. She is captured just before reaching puberty and so, ironically, escapes female circumcision, which her people practised (removing the clitoris and part of the labia, and sewing up the vaginal entrance - extraordinarily painful and meant to make a woman "pure" for her husband - Aminata isn't keen but doesn't judge; I on the other hand believe it is the cruellest form of torture you can do to a woman and there's no excuse for it.

For all that Aminata and other slaves go through, she deserves the right to tell her whole story and not shy from the unpleasant details, or have her account censored. It is the early 1800s, Regency London - the same time and place in which we love to read carefree romance novels that are free of the taint of black slavery - and the English have no real idea or any sympathy for what the black slaves endured. She argued to be the one to write her own story, by herself. Even though she is a fictional character in a fictional account, she deserves to be heard by us as well.

But as they learned English, as slaves, what would happen if they spoke like their masters? Aminata learns this, she learns the dialect that the slaves speak to each other, and the grammatically stronger but far from perfect English they use with the white people. After Aminata escapes slavery, she drops this dialect and speaks "proper" English, but I get the sense it is due to her ability to learn languages quickly and well, and her desire not to be looked down upon, rather than a form of pretension. It certainly makes her a bit of a curiosity with the white people. Great Read. Recommend. ...more

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Jan 22, 2016 Chelsea rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club, adult-historical-fiction

What an amazing historical fiction about the life of an African girl kidnapped, shipped over to America, and sold into slavery in the colonies back in the late 1700's. I had to keep reminding myself that the book was fiction! Her story seemed so real. Made me appreciate my family and my freedom so much more. The story is heart-wrenching at times, but oh so well put together. This author really did do his research and tells an amazing story to have the history come to life. ...more

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Jan 21, 2016 Cindy rated it really liked it

Shelves: hooray-for-books-and-reading

An 11-year-old girl is captured and torn away from her family and sold into slavery. This book tells the amazing story of her life.

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Jan 13, 2013 Pam rated it it was amazing

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