The Book of Negroes: Lawrence Hill

Lawrence Hill avoids sensationalizing a gripping topic

To be frank, we were expecting a tome derivative of Roots. Not so. This is contemporary Canadian fiction to a compelling standard, without the wailing and gnashing of teeth that surrounds Hollywood accounts of the slave trade. The biggest surprise to Tempo Toronto reviewers was the involvement of Novia Scotia in this story.

Lawrence Hill published his novel, The Book of Negroes, in 2007 and it has since picked up some notable attention, including winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Overall Book, and winner of CBC’s Canada Reads 2009, as well as being on the Giller Prize list.

This historical novel takes the reader from Africa to the USA, Nova Scotia and England, while documenting the eighteenth century life into and out of slavery of the protagonist Aminata. While there are multiple opportunities to descend into sensationalizing the misery of the hordes of Africans stolen into slavery, Hill resisted them all. He has mastered the art of flowing narrative and has built a most memorable character for whom you can feel empathy. While highlighting the atrocious conditions in which Africans were transported and were expected to live as slaves, Hill steers away from sensational accounts of human cruelty and keeps us gripped within the unfolding of the years, the development of community, and the progress that was made in the abolition of slavery.

The book received glowing reviews from the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, among others. Deservedly so. While a work of fiction, Hill does draw from real events: indeed there is a Book of Negroes – the largest single document about black people in North America up until the end of the eighteenth century; and the novel represents Hill’s understanding of the Black Loyalists and their history.

This is a compelling read: authoritative, memorable and believable.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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