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Lawrence Hill gets some love from Oprah

It’s summertime, which means barbeques, beach volleyball, and anarchists smashing windows in downtown Toronto. (Okay, that last was just a one-off … it is devoutly to be hoped.) Another seasonal ritual is the summer reading list in O, the Oprah Magazine. Last year, the doyenne of daytime television anointed The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki with a spot on the list; this year, among the de rigueur dysfunctional family novels and instances of blatant self-promotion readers can find a book called Someone Knows My Name. It’s an historical novel by Lawrence Hill; Canadian readers may know it better as The Book of Negroes. (Notwithstanding the historical reference, the Canadian title was apparently deemed too scandalous for delicate American sensibilities.)

Hill’s appearance on Oprah’s list is the latest laurel for a novel that has already won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, come first in CBC’s Canada Reads competition, and landed a movie deal.

According to the write-up in O:

This is a gritty, at times almost too detailed, tale – after page upon page describing abuse and cruelty, a reader might almost become inured to Aminata’s suffering. Still, she is an admirable heroine, and Hill’s depiction of her journey to freedom is a powerful tale of pride and perseverance. Whatever you want to call it.

It’s interesting to note that the description also states, “When it was published in Canada in 2007, The Book of Negroes … became an instant, prizewinning hit.” This is not exactly true; the book actually had a bit of a slow start. Although it was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, it failed to make the shortlist and was not nominated for that year’s Governor General’s Literary Award. Its word-of-mouth success began about a year after its first publication, and was arguably spurred on when the book won the 2008 Rogers Writers’ Trust Award. Since then, it’s safe to say that it’s been making up for lost time.

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