CCR Book Club - June 2010

The last meeting for the season will be held Monday, June 21 at 7:30 pm at the house of Jeannine Ouimet to discuss "The Book of Negroes" by Canadian author Lawrence Hill.

When: Monday, June 21, 2010
Where: Jeannine Ouimet's home
RSVP: to Cindi by June 18th and let me know what you are able to bring
to the potluck dinner & discussion.
Contact me by e-mail at cindi.emond@yahoo.ca

Lawrence Hill's novel tells the story of Aminata Diallo, a woman kidnapped at the age of 11 from West Africa who lives through the height of slavery in the Americas. Along the ways she serves as a scribe to British forces during the American revolutionary war, is resettled to Nova Scotia and even makes a harrowing journey back to Africa. The title is inspired by an actual historical "Book of Negroes," that recorded the names of loyalist black slaves who could escape slavery in what would become the United States.

Look forward to seeing everyone there,

Cindi Emond

The following is a reprint of an article published in the National Post. Ron Nurwisah looks at one of the challenges facing the author and publishers of this month's pick.

Lawrence Hill's novel The Book of Negroes is a genuine hit in Canada. It may have
missed out on Canada's big literary awards, the Governor-General and the Giller, but it made up for it by winning the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and, more recently, this year's edition of Canada Reads.



Hill's novel tells the story of Aminata Diallo, a woman kidnapped at the age of 11 from West Africa who lives through the height of slavery in the Americas. Along the ways she serves as a scribe to British forces during the American revolutionary war, is resettled to Nova Scotia and even makes a harrowing journey back to Africa. The title is inspired by an actual historical "Book of Negroes," that recorded the names of loyalist black slaves who could escape slavery in what would become the United States.

The title would spark controversy in the U.S. Hill's editors and publishers in the U.S. got nervous about the word "negro." This, despite the historical context of the novel. The title was changed to the slightly more vague, definitely more prosaic Someone Knows My Name. Hill talks about the title controversy here and acknowledges that the word is not nearly as charged with history in Canada. He even goes as far to say that some readers may have stayed away from the book with its original title. That would've been a real tragedy.

When I began touring with the novel in some of the major US cities, literary African-Americans kept approaching me and telling me it was a good thing indeed that the title had changed, because they would never have touched the book with its Canadian title.

On to the covers. With the book's success, the Canadian cover is pretty familiar now but let's take a look at the foreign treatments. Despite the title change in the U.S., the American edition is actually quite handsome. The book pays homage to another great novel that explores African-American history, Edward Jones' The Known World, note the horizontal band at the bottom of both books. Both books were published by HarperCollins in the U.S. What's surprising is the spareness of copy on the American jacket. The book got some positive press in the U.S., so it's curious that HarperCollins chose not to take advantage of this.


The U.K. edition sticks closely to the American edition, but decides to go with Hill's original title. It discards that elegant design element at the bottom, probably because the homage to Edward Jones' might not be nearly as effective in that market.



Finally, there's the Australian edition, which takes an interesting tack and goes the "blockbuster" route. The cover almost makes you want to go see Someone Knows My Name the movie and one wonders whether a few Australian readers gave it a second glance because they may have missed a new art house flick and wanted to read the novel it was adapted from.

April 2, 2009
The Afterword
Postings from the literary world.
National Post