The Book of Negroes

What is the significance of the title, Someone Knows My Name? In your opinion, which title is more suitable, the American title, or the Canadian one, The Book of Negroes, and why?

What do the terms “Africa” and “African” mean in this text, both to Aminata and to others? How does this issue relate to the themes of migration and homecoming? How does the motif of maps and map-making give meaning to the word “Africa” as an actual and psychic space?

How is parenthood portrayed in this novel? Think specifically, and separately, about the ways that motherhood, fatherhood, and the procreative instinct are depicted, and how they relate to themes such as homecoming and migration.

What is the role of organized religion in the novel? How do various peoples and communities pray, and how does the text depict and comment upon their belief systems and their behavior?

Aminata longs for home throughout the novel. What is the meaning of “home” in this text, and how does that meaning evolve as the novel progresses?

This novel highlights the genre of the slave narrative, as exemplified by the renowned Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745-1797), a freed slave from the eastern part of present day Nigeria who achieved great fame during his lifetime. In 1789, he published his autobiography in London to great acclaim, and is credited with advancing the cause of British abolition. In the novel, Anna Maria Falconbridge gives Aminata her copy of this text as a gift; later, in London, Aminata and Dante discuss its significance for the black people of London. Interestingly, this is the book Aminata chooses to read aloud to her rescuers in the remote African village after her escape from Alassane. Discuss the myriad ways that this slave narrative is used in the novel, not only for plot and characterization, but also to elucidate themes such as storytelling and migration.

In Chapter 19, Aminata ruminates on the roots of slavery:“Who was to blame for all this evil, and who had started it? If I ever got home to Bayo again, would people in the village still be at risk of being valued, and stolen? Would my own villagers still keep woloso—second-generation slaves—as we had done in my own childhood? It seemed to me that the trading in men would continue for as long as some people were free to take others as their property” (424). What position does the novel take on these causes of slavery and each of the players involved? How does the text use metaphor to explicate and complicate this issue?

How are herbs and plants, both medicinal and culinary, threaded through the novel to exemplify certain aspects of society and culture?