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Overview
The most provocative debut novel of the year, "a dizzying satire" (The New Yorker) that "boldly turns history on its head" (Elle).
What if the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been reversed and Africans had enslaved Europeans? How would that have changed the ways that people justified their inhuman behavior? How would it inform our cultural attitudes and the insidious racism that still lingers today? We see this tragicomic world turned upside down through the eyes of Doris, an Englishwoman enslaved and taken to the New World, movingly recounting experiences of tremendous hardship and the dreams of the people she has left behind, all while journeying toward an escape into freedom.
A poignant and dramatic story grounded in provocative ideas, Blonde Roots is a genuinely original, profoundly imaginative novel.
Synopsis
The most provocative debut novel of the year, "a dizzying satire" (The New Yorker) that "boldly turns history on its head" (Elle).
What is the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been reversed and Africans has enslaved Europeans? How would that have changed the ways that people justified their inhuman behavior? How would it inform our cultural attitudes and the insidious racism that still lingers today? We see this tragicomic world turned upside down through the eyes of Doris, an Englishwoman enslaved and taken to the New World, movingly recounting experiences of tremendous hardship and the dreams of the people she has left behind, all while journeying toward an escape into freedom.
A poignant and dramatic story grounded in provocative ideas, Blonde Roots is a genuinely original, profoundly imaginative novel.
The Washington Post - Ron Charles
My only complaint about Bernardine Evaristo's alternate history of racial slavery is that it's 150 years late. Imagine the outrage this clever novel would have provoked alongside Harriet Beecher Stowe's incendiary story or Frederick Douglass's memoir!…Blonde Roots turns the whole world on its nappy head, and you'll be surprised how different it looks—and how similar…The whole story is a riotous, bitter course in the arbitrary nature of our cultural values. Don't be fooled; slavery might have ended 150 years ago, but you've still got time to be enlightened by this bracing novel.
Editorials
Ron Charles
My only complaint about Bernardine Evaristo's alternate history of racial slavery is that it's 150 years late. Imagine the outrage this clever novel would have provoked alongside Harriet Beecher Stowe's incendiary story or Frederick Douglass's memoir!…Blonde Roots turns the whole world on its nappy head, and you'll be surprised how different it looks—and how similar…The whole story is a riotous, bitter course in the arbitrary nature of our cultural values. Don't be fooled; slavery might have ended 150 years ago, but you've still got time to be enlightened by this bracing novel.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
British novelist Evaristo delivers an astonishing, uncomfortable and beautiful alternative history that goes back several centuries to flip the slave trade, with "Aphrikans" enslaving the people of "Europa" and exporting many of them to "Amarika." The plot revolves around Doris, the daughter of a long line of proud cabbage farmers who live in serfdom. After she's kidnapped by slavers, she experiences the horror and inhumanity of slave transport, is sold and works her way back to freedom. The narrative cuts back and forth through time, contrasting the journey to freedom with the journey toward slavery. In a less skilled writer's hands, the premise easily could have worn itself out by the second chapter, but Evaristo's intellectually rigorous narrative constantly surprises, and, for all the barbarism on display, it's strikingly human. Evaristo's novel is a powerful, thoughtful reminder that diabolical behavior can take place in any culture, "safety" is an illusion and freedom is something easily taken for granted. This difficult and provocative book is a conversation sparker. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
What would the world be like if Africans had enslaved Europeans, instead of vice versa? Evaristo, the daughter of an English mother and a Nigerian father as well as the award-winning author of three previous novels (e.g., The Emperor's Babe), brings such a world to life in this speculative historical fiction. Told through the voice of Doris (renamed Omorenomwara), who was stolen as a child from her home in Britain and sold into slavery, the novel manages to inject some wry, dry humor into its heartbreaking narrative, thanks to its intelligent and sarcastic heroine. The horrors and indignities of slavery are explored in terrible detail, but Doris's unflagging spirit and thirst for freedom keep the story moving. The wide variety of characters, the examinations of image and identity, and Doris's own adventures may make this a popular selection for book groups. Highly recommended for all academic and public libraries.
—Alicia Korenman