“I am a human being; I am a woman; I am a black woman; I am an African. Once I was free; then I was captured and became a slave; but inside me, I have never been a slave, inside me here and here, I am still a free woman.”

This defiant declaration is made by Ama, the eponymous heroine of a stunning novel of the Atlantic slave trade by Ghanian author Manu Herbstein which E-Reads published as an original – one of the few originals it has ever undertaken – in 2002. In validation of our judgment, it was awarded the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book of that year.

We immediately thought of Herbstein’s heroine, who has drawn comparison to Kunta Kinte, protagonist of Alex Haley’s Roots, when we learned that President Obama planned to travel to Ghana. There he and his family visited a site known to every African American family that has investigated its African origins. Here is how the New York Times‘s Peter Baker reported it:

“His one-day stop blended his vision of the future with echoes of the past. He stood in the Door of No Return at Cape Coast Castle, a notorious slave port perched on the windswept sea here where men who looked like him were once held in dungeons until they were marched in shackles to waiting ships. He brought his wife, Michelle, a descendant of slaves, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha.

“Mr. Obama, rarely one to display emotion, seemed especially sober. He said the castle reminded him of the Buchenwald concentration camp and underscored the existence of “pure evil” in the world.

“’Obviously, it’s a moving experience, a moving moment,’” he said. “’As painful as it is, I think that it helps to teach all of us that we have to do what we can to fight against the kinds of evils that, sadly, still exist in our world.’”

As Barack Obama toured Ghana he was greeted by chants of “Yes We Can!” We wonder what he would say to Ama if he had a chance to bring her back through that door. Perhaps it would be the same thing he said to the people of Ghana: “You can do that. Yes, you can. Because in this moment, history is on the move.”

We asked Manu Herbstein, author of Ama, to record his personal impressions of President Obama’s visit. You may read his thought-provoking essay here.

Richard Curtis

****************************
Ama

Thrust into a foreign land, passed from owner to owner, stripped of her identity. This is the life of Nandzi, who was given the name Ama, a name strange to her and her tribal culture. A life of struggle and resignation, bondage and freedom, passion and indifference, intense love and remorseless hate. Though forced into desperation, Ama never lets her soul be consumed by fear. While the stories of individual slaves have been blurred into one mass, Ama’s story personifies the experience of eighteenth-century Africans in an unforgettable way. Her entrancing story of defiance and spiritual fire starts from the day she is brutally seized, raped, and enslaved, and ends with her breathing the pure air of freedom. Ama is a deeply engrossing and colorful novel, packed with violence, sex, and action. The resiliency of her spirit will grip readers from the first page to the last of Manu Herbstein’s spellbinding novel. One reviewer said she wished she could award Ama six stars. Read this and other stunning reviews of Ama.

To read an unforgettable scene from Ama, click here.
**********************************
Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.