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Blonde Roots

From the Booker prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

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Blonde Roots

By: Bernardine Evaristo
Narrated by: Charlotte Beaumont, Ben Arogundade
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER

RECIPIENT OF THE WOMEN’S PRIZE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION AWARD

Welcome to a world turned upside down. One minute, Doris, from England, is playing hide-and-seek with her sisters in the fields behind their cottage. The next, someone puts a bag over her head and she ends up in the hold of a slave-ship sailing to the New World . . .

In this fantastically imaginative inversion of the transatlantic slave trade - in which 'whytes' are enslaved by black people - Bernardine Evaristo has created a thought-provoking satire that is as accessible and readable as it is intelligent and insightful. Blonde Roots brings the shackles and cries of long-ago barbarity uncomfortably close and raises timely questions about the society of today.

'A bold and brilliant game of counterfactual history. Evaristo keep[s] her wit and anger at a spicy simmer throughout' Daily Telegraph

'So human and real. Re-imagines past and present with refreshing humour and intelligence' Guardian

'A brilliant satire whose flashes of comedy make the underlying tragedy all the more poignant' Scotland on Sunday

LONGLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2009
WINNER OF THE ORANGE YOUTH PANEL AWARD 2009
FINALIST FOR THE HURSTON WRIGHT LEGACY AWARD 2010

© Bernadine Evaristo 2008 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Black Creators Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Science Fiction Women's Fiction
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Critic reviews

A hugely imaginative tale that invites important debates, challenging fundamental perceptions of race, culture and history
This brilliant novel will fulfil [Evaristo's] purpose of making readers view the transatlantic slave trade with fresh eyes
A phenomenal book. It is so ingenious and so novel. Think The Handmaid's Tale meets Noughts and Crosses with a bit of Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll thrown in. This should be thought of as a feminist classic.
Reimagines past and present with refreshing humour and intelligence . . . human and real
[Blonde Roots] is a powerful gesture of fearless thematic ownership by one of the UK's most unusual and challenging writers
As with a Swiftean satire, Evaristo's novel is powerful not for its fantastical elements but for its ability to bring home the horror of historical events
All stars
Most relevant
Great concept for a story and supported with plenty of detail - albeit making for uncomfortable reading in places. Let down somewhat in the telling by the male narrator - too laboured - I actually found it less irritating when the audio speed was increased to x1.2 for the male voice sections.

Good but felt short-changed

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the simple device of swapping the races, amazingly, has a huge effect on how you understand this horendous chapter of british history. well written, the story explores many of the horrific realities of the western slave trade.

simply swapping the races makes you think

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A really poignant re-imagining of the abominable slave trade. Characters brilliantly created. Satirically very clever.

Excellent and thought provoking.

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If you are reading this you are probably aware that Bernadine Evaristo reimagines a world where it is the technologies of people of colour, located in the Africa continent, where the evolutionary story begins, as she constructs people from that continent as superior to all the other so-called races and it is whyte people, originating from the continent of Europe, who are at the bottom of the evolutionary pile. This means of course that white readers get a taste of enslavement from the perspective of the whyte people from Europa and, in that respect, Evaristo pulls no punches in her detailed descriptions of life on a slave ship and on the plantations.
This is a very creative and clever reversal of historical events and Evaristo goes a long way towards convincing us that the world is very different to the one In which we are currently living. It feels as if a simple geographical twist of fate is what enables the huge shift in the evolution of humankind. Some of the most chilling chapters are the ones in the centre of the book, where the whole horror of scientific racism is reimagined as a process whereby blak people are placed at the top of the evolutionary cycle and whyte people at the bottom, through a whole process of measurement and so-called anthropometrics. It’s a very scary reminder of the scientific racism of the 19th and 20th centuries and every so-called scientist should be forced to read this book, as should every schoolchild, both in Europe and in the United States. This book is an excellent introduction to the horrors of the enslavement of millions of humans, especially if you have bothered to read about these histories is before.

Brilliant reversal of historical events

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Absolutely loved this.
If you're white and ever wondered how you'd feel as a slave. Read this. If you're white and haven't thought about it, then you should definitely read this book.
It's poignant, hard hitting and has speckles of humour.
Bernadine writes so wel, the whole book just flows.
Read this book

A Must Read/Listen

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