Book Review: Blonde Roots

Blonde Roots
by Bernadine Evaristo
Review by Alex P

“What if Europeans were the enslaved and Africans were the slavers?” That is the question Bernadine Evaristo answers in this subversive book, a retelling of the transatlantic slave trade. This book is conflicting for the reader, and may challenge what you think you know about yourself. It’s a mine-field of sorts, as you try to navigate through what you are reading vs what you know actually happened during this time period. I found myself less sympathetic to the English slaves in the story due to England’s barbaric history, and then had to remind myself that in this book, that history doesn’t exist. I laughed as a slaver spoke of the ridiculous pseudoscience of phrenology, only to have the sudden, chilling realization that it was genuinely used as a reason to enslave people in real life.

Thoroughly researched, engaging and confronting, it’s one of Evaristo’s more unusual books, but no less enthralling.