The Hundred Wells of Salaga in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 27, 2019 Beverly rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, newtome2019, historical-fiction, cross-cultural

this was a 3.5 read for me
thoughts coming shortly

4 likes · Like · see review

Oct 23, 2019 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, womens-day, era-mid-late-1800s, r2019-in-2019, based-on-real-life, ohno-its-magical-realism

“Salaga is the town of one hundred wells,” said Wurche.

“Why are there so many wells here?” asked Aminah.

“They were built to wash slaves after long journeys,” said Wurche.

Set in pre-colonial Ghana during the time of slave-trading with the Europeans (1892-1897), I appreciate that this is a slice of historical fiction that we don’t see enough of, but this book did not have much else to recommend it for me. This story didn’t draw me the way I’d hoped. I never really cared about the characters,

“Salaga is the town of one hundred wells,” said Wurche.

“Why are there so many wells here?” asked Aminah.

“They were built to wash slaves after long journeys,” said Wurche.

Set in pre-colonial Ghana during the time of slave-trading with the Europeans (1892-1897), I appreciate that this is a slice of historical fiction that we don’t see enough of, but this book did not have much else to recommend it for me. This story didn’t draw me the way I’d hoped. I never really cared about the characters, and the writing is a bit clunky.

Baba was quiet. It was a measured, calm quiet. Not the oppressive, heavy breathing of someone who didn’t like silence. His quietness was his essence, and it had a way of cushioning the rough edges of the room. Baba had spread a gray sheet on the floor, where he piled his shoes. He reached for a knife, snipped a loose thread off the boot, and added it to the pile.

One paragraph of that is not bad, I know. But pages and pages of choppy sentences like that had my mind wandering elsewhere, often. There’s also a lot of blatant and obvious foreshadowing.

The chapters alternate between Aminah, a Boto girl kidnapped into slavery, and Wurche, a Salaga princess forced to marry a man she detests. Overall, I found I preferred Aminah’s story. At one point Aminah is told to bathe in a pool in Salaga before being sold, and I suppose that was meaningful, given the title, but it was hard for me to really know what was going on.

I’m unfamiliar with Ghana naming customs so I was often confused with people and place names. This is on me, not the author, of course, but it definitely affected my experience reading. For example, in Aminah’s family, there’s three people named Na, and Issa-Na, and Issa ... I gather the “Na” suffix indicates “mother” somehow, perhaps it means “mother of sons,” I’m not sure. There are helpful family trees and a map, so I was able to keep most of it straight after some fumbling.

It’s not all flat. There are some lovely, quite evocative passages, like this one:

She woke early. The other girls lay like felled logs carelessly left on the forest floor. Sahada’s raspy breathing made her chest rise and fall dramatically. Her arm was flung over another girl’s back. Aminah felt strange about leaving them behind, having grown used to them; they had shared a few moments of laughter when they poked fun at Wofa Sarpong and his family, but each of them had held back and, as if knowing their stays would be temporary, none of them had peeled away their outer layers to share their true selves.

This would be a good book for high school or college students to read in a history or global literature course. Aminah is based (loosely) on the life of Attah’s great great grandmother. Attah did quite a bit of research in the history of slavery in Salaga. Slavery and the destabilizing effects of the Europeans is a central theme. At the same time, Attah makes it clear that things are not clear cut; one of the central characters is a slave trader, but he is also a former slave himself, and a kind person. Another character is a German soldier who likes to believe that the Germans are in the Gold Coast to improve people’s lives, but of course that is not the whole story.

But what bothers me is you telling us how to live. I’ll give you an example. Before your people arrived, slaves were people caught in war or people whose families couldn’t take care of them. A lot of them married into even royal families. After you came, it became a business. Kidnapping, raiding. Those things were started to meet your needs. Now, all we hear is how you Europeans want slavery to end. In other words, you’re calling us the bad ones.

...more

1 like · Like · see review