Someone Knows My Name

Aminata Diallo is the novel’s protagonist and narrator. Aminata is uncommonly beautiful—she has rich dark skin, inscrutable eyes, a height of five feet two inches, a branding above her right breast, and crescent moons sculpted into her cheeks. The story begins with an elderly Aminata in London at the start of the 19th century. She tells her story through yearnful flashbacks, starting from her childhood in the village of Bayo in West Africa. Aminata is kidnapped outside her village at the age of 11, after slavers murder her parents in front of her eyes. Throughout her life Aminata holds tightly to her childhood identity: “I am Aminata Diallo, daughter of Mamadu Diallo and Sira Kulibali, born in the village of Bayo, three moons by foot from the Grain Coast in West Africa. I am a Bamana. And a Fula”(3). However, she fails to realize that every migration and experience changes her. Traveling on the slave ship, harvesting indigo on Appleby’s farm, working as a self-hire for the Lindo’s, taking back her freedom in New York City, writing the “Book of Negroes,” searching for the promised land in Nova Scotia, hoping to return home in Sierra Leone, and finally becoming a