Blonde Roots

Brought to you by Penguin. '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.' Women's Prize for Fiction PodcastImagine if the transatlantic slave trade was reversed. Imagine Africans the masters and Europeans their slaves . . . Now meet young Doris, living in a sleepy English cottage. One day she is kidnapped and put aboard a slave ship bound for the New World. On a strange tropical island, Doris is told she is an ugly, stupid savage. Her only purpose in life is to please her mistress. Then, as personal assistant to Bwana, Chief Kaga Konata Katamba I, she sees the horrors of the sugarcane fields. Slaves are worked to death under the blazing sun. But though she lives in chains, Doris dreams of escape - of returning home to England and those she loves . . . '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 (c) Bernadine Evaristo 2008 (P) Penguin Audio 2020