This could be a text for schoolchildren – there’s some gore, enough horror to be enticing – and lots of discussion around history, the erasure of history, what we consider to be ‘actual’ history. The worlds she creates are eminently familiar – old and new mashed up – skateboarding youths and cabbage-farming peasants. It’s interesting how she presents the black master’s justification for slavery – how he feels he is ‘saving’ the ‘whytes‘ from themselves. It’s a brutal account – but of course, it’s all actual experience, suffered by countless black people throughout history.īernadine Evaristo is a brilliant writer, I really enjoy her characterful narratives and evocative tales. The degradation and death that surrounds her. Her days as companion to a spoilt black child. We’re told about her journey on the slave ship. We hear of her life under her wealthy black master. A smart reversal of history, and a sometimes hard read – in Blonde Roots, the author tells the story of Doris, a young white woman abducted from her home and sold into slavery.
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