Point of View

The novel is told from Aminata Diallo's first-person perspective. She begins the novel as an old woman living in London, England. As she prepares to testify to the parliamentary committee about abolishing the slave trade, she writes her life story, detailing all the cruelties and losses she has endured after being kidnapped and enslaved. She is a reliable narrator, for in testifying to the parliamentary committee – and, by extension, in telling her story to the reader – she wants to tell the truth about what happened. Other people attempt to tell (or, really, hijack) her story, but she does not let them, for their version would suit only their own agenda, and would not be true. She must tell her own story of her own life in her own words.

By using the first-person, Lawrence Hill makes the reader feel everything Aminata feels: lost family and...