I have had this book on my shelves for several years and regret not getting around to reading it sooner. This was really a superb novel telling the story of Aminata Diallo, an African woman who was abducted and put into slavery when she was eleven years old. Aminata is the narrator of this rather long and compelling story. She is put through the hardships of traveling out of Africa as part of a coffle of slaves for months before reaching the sea and further hardship on a slave ship. She eventually reaches South Carolina and is bought by an indigo plantation owner. She has skills as a midwife and manages to survive and to learn to read from another slave there and thus becomes sought after for her knowledge. Eventually she is bought by a Jewish indigo grader who seems kind to her but who had a hand in selling her young daughter. She makes her way to New York and is used by the British to register names in the "Book of Negroes" which allows Black Loyalists to Britain during the Revolutionary War to sail to Nova Scotia. Aminata travels with them to Nova Scotia but finds it is also full of hardships. She is constantly wanting to return to Africa and especially wants to find her husband and two children. She does eventually return to Africa but it was not what she expected and she ends up traveling to London to help in the cause of the abolitionists there.

I would highly recommend this very interesting and compelling story which is based on true events. I learned a lot about the slave trade and the atrocities committed by all those involved in it. Aminata's voice was very strong in this narrative and although the novel was long, it kept me turning the pages. This is probably the best book I have read in 2020!

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