Behzad Jam Jam itibaren Laurein, Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol, İtalya itibaren Laurein, Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol, İtalya

What an incredible book. It's books like these that make me realize how little I know about history, even the history of my own country, and how many amazing stories are yet to be told. The Book of Negroes is the story of a young girl stolen from her village in Africa, and her journey around the world (with stops in the US, Canada, England and even back to Africa) -- from freedom to slavery and back again. Of course, one has to accept that our lead character stumbles into a lot of incredibly good luck in order to survive to tell her story, not to mention have the skills to tell it. She certainly endures periods of incredible hardship and cruelty, but she also manages to find paying work time and time again, and to be liked and respected by many sympathetic and influential white people, which I would imagine was a rare occurrence even once in the life of a slave, let alone half a dozen times. While reading, I almost forgot that the story was written by a man, because Hill portrays a woman's thoughts so beautifully. But a friend of mine pointed out that there is a certain male detachment throughout the novel. That may well be true, though even a female author would have likely employed a similar approach, because otherwise the horrible parts might have been unbearable. Indeed, some of the most humiliating and traumatizing events were told in a very matter-of-fact, almost cold way. Had I as reader really felt the pain of the narrator as she told those passages, I don't know if I could have continued. My father is not a fiction reader, but I had to pass this along to him because it is so interesting from a historical perspective (and accurate, from what I've found).