Blonde Roots

I like inventive stories of any kind and if the writer has invented some kind of alternative reality set either in the past, present or future I am always interested in taking a closer look at the book. That is why Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo caught my eye. It is a story about the transatlantic slave trade, but with a twist. Evaristo has redrawn the map of the world. There is still Africa, America and Europe or rather Aphrika, Amarika and Europa, but in her map an island the shape of the British Isles called United Kingdom of Great Ambossa (capital Londolo!) is situated at the Equator just west of the Aphrikan coast and Europa is in fact south of Aphrika with a small, continental country of England on its west coast. On the other side of the Atlantic West Japanese Islands east of continental Amarika are famous for their sugar cane plantations run with slave labour. The twist in the story is of course that the Aphrikans are the slave traders and the Europana "wiggers" the slaves.

The book tells the story of an English woman named Doris Scagglethorpe & later renamed Omorenomwara, who is captured by slavers while a young girl of about 11. There is everything you could imagine in a story about slavery: abuse by the masters, violence, slave women's children being sold off, there even is an Underground Railroad (operating in the unused underground tunnels of Londolo) helping slaves to escape. 

I found the idea of turning the tragedy of slavery around this way very interesting. Evaristo has also made good use of real London place names and Aphrikanised them! Real life Paddington Station had become Paddinto Station, Mayfair Mayfah etc. This was all well and good, but the way she had imagined the Aphrikan culture made me think what would a person with an African inheritance think of this book? Would they find it interesting, amusing -or insulting? I felt a bit uneasy with some of the details of the imaginary Aphrikan culture. The inhumaness of slavery, however, was portrayed very well. As was the first generation slaves' longing to their home country. And there were also humour.

The alternative history aspect of Blonde Roots left me somewhat confused. On the one hand judged by the fashions of the Europanes and the time it took to cross the Atlantic by boat it seemed that the story took place in an alternative 19th-century world, but then there were metro tunnels and scateboarding kids, too! I would have prefered to have known better what really was the time period Evaristo meant the story to take place in.

All in all, I did like some aspects of the story, and others not so much. However, I think I would like to try and read more Evaristo, maybe The Emperor's Babe?

Have you read Blonde Roots? What did you think of it?