Aminata Diallo (“an amazing literary creation,” Literary Review of Canada) is the beguil­ing heroine of Lawrence Hill’s SOMEONE KNOWS MY NAME. In it, Hill exquisitely imagines the tale of an eighteenth-century woman’s life, spanning six decades and three continents. The fascinating story that Hill tells is a work of the soul and the imagination. Aminata is a character who will stir listeners, from her kid­napping from Africa through her journeys back and forth across the ocean.

Enslaved on a South Carolina plantation, Aminata works in the indigo fields and as a mid­wife. When she is bought by an entrepreneur from Charleston, she is torn from friends and family. The chaos of the Revolutionary War allows her to escape. In British-held Manhattan, she helps pen the Book of Negroes, a list of blacks rewarded for wartime service to the King with safe passage to Nova Scotia. During her travels in Canada, Sierra Leone, and England, Aminata strives for her free­dom and that of her people–even when it comes at a price.

In this captivating novel, Hill portrays one woman’s remarkable spirit and strength in the face of adversity, and he brings to life crucial and little-known chapters in world history.

• book
• 2007
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