Blonde Roots
By: Bernardine Evaristo
About This Book
FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER LONGLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2009 WINNER OF THE ORANGE YOUTH PANEL AWARD 2009 FINALIST FOR THE HURSTON WRIGHT LEGACY AWARD 2010 'A phenomenal book. It is so ingenious and so novel. Think The Handmaid's Tale meets Noughts and Crosses with a bit of Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll thrown in. This should be thought of as a feminist classic.' Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast Welcome to a world turned upside down. One minute, Doris, from England, is playing hide-and-seek with her sisters in the fields behind their cottage. The next, someone puts a bag over her head and she ends up in the hold of a slave-ship sailing to the New World . . . In this fantastically imaginative inversion of the transatlantic slave trade - in which 'whytes' are enslaved by black people - Bernardine Evaristo has created a thought-provoking satire that is as accessible and readable as it is intelligent and insightful. Blonde Roots brings the shackles and cries of long-ago barbarity uncomfortably close and raises timely questions about the society of today. 'A bold and brilliant game of counterfactual history. Evaristo keep[s] her wit and anger at a spicy simmer throughout' Daily Telegraph 'So human and real. Re-imagines past and present with refreshing humour and intelligence' Guardian 'A brilliant satire whose flashes of comedy make the underlying tragedy all the more poignant' Scotland on Sunday
AI Overview
Comprehensive Overview of "Blonde Roots" by Bernardine Evaristo
Plot Summary: "Blonde Roots" by Bernardine Evaristo is a thought-provoking novel that flips traditional historical narratives by imagining a world where Africans are the masters and Europeans are their slaves. The story follows the journey of Doris Scagglethorpe, a young white girl from England who is kidnapped at the age of ten and sold into slavery. She is renamed Omorenomwara and subjected to the brutal realities of the slave trade, including the Middle Passage. The novel explores her descent into enslavement, her transformation into a slave, and her struggles to adapt to a new and oppressive reality in the so-called Great Ambossa, an alternate version of the New World.
Key Themes:
- Historical Inversion: The novel challenges deeply ingrained perceptions of race and power by reversing the traditional roles of enslavers and enslaved.
- Trauma and Resilience: Doris's journey is marked by immense suffering and trauma, but also by her resilience and determination to survive.
- Family Separation: The novel highlights the devastating impact of family separation on individuals, particularly children, who are torn from their loved ones and forced into a life of slavery.
- Identity and Power: Through Doris's transformation, the book explores how identity is stripped away and power dynamics are reversed, leading to a complex exploration of what it means to be a slave and an oppressor.
- Social Commentary: The novel critiques the systemic nature of slavery and the opulent lifestyles built on the suffering of others, emphasizing that the perpetrators of slavery are not uniquely wicked but rather part of a broader system of oppression.
Critical Reception:
- Historical Novel Society Review: The Historical Novel Society describes "Blonde Roots" as the life story of a slave who is plucked from her family by pirates and brutalized in the great city of London, highlighting the novel's focus on the personal and emotional aspects of slavery.
- Penguin Random House Reading Guide: This guide notes that the novel is a tragicomic world turned upside down through the eyes of Doris, an Englishwoman who is kidnapped while playing hide-and-seek with her sisters, emphasizing the narrative's unique perspective.
- Strange Horizons Review: Gwyneth Jones's review in Strange Horizons praises the novel for its sardonic commentary on the slave trade, noting that it immerses readers in the primacy of the "West Japanese" (aka "West Indies") slave trade as a business venture. The review also highlights the bleak realities of life in 18th-century England for poor families like the Scagglethorpes, suggesting that their lives were not idyllic but rather marked by hardship and oppression.
Overall, "Blonde Roots" is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that challenges readers to reconsider traditional narratives of power and subjugation. Through its vivid portrayal of an alternate history, it explores themes of trauma, resilience, and social commentary, making it a significant work in contemporary literature.