Blonde Roots
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  • Published: 16 July 2020
  • ISBN: 9780141031521
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $26.00

Blonde Roots

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

Formats & editions
Paperback
16 Jul 2020
EBook
20 Aug 2020
Audiobook
16 Jul 2020
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A searing exploration of the transatlantic slave trade from the Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

Imagine 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 . . .
  • Published: 16 July 2020
  • ISBN: 9780141031521
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $26.00
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About the author

Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo is the author of Lara, winner of the Emma Best Book Award in 1999, The Emperor's Babe and Soul Tourists. She is a former Poet in Residence at the Museum of London, and her work has been widely anthologized. She won a prestigious Arts Council Writers Award in 2000.

Also by Bernardine Evaristo

Manifesto
The Emperor's Babe
Girl, Woman, Other
Penguin Readers Level 7: Girl, Woman, Other (ELT Graded Reader)
Mr Loverman
Hello Mum
Soul Tourists
See all

Praise for Blonde Roots

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 Podcast

A hugely imaginative tale that invites important debates, challenging fundamental perceptions of race, culture and history

Independent on Sunday

This brilliant novel will fulfil [Evaristo's] purpose of making readers view the transatlantic slave trade with fresh eyes

The Times

Reimagines past and present with refreshing humour and intelligence . . . human and real

Guardian

[Blonde Roots] is a powerful gesture of fearless thematic ownership by one of the UK's most unusual and challenging writers

Independent

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

Financial Times