Lawrence Hill discusses his novel, The Book of Negroes in Brantford Ontario

On Sept. 30, faculty members, students of Laurier University and residences of the town showed up to the Research Centre in Brantford, Ont. to watch

Lawrence Hill discuss his award winning novel, The Book of Negroes.

Lawrence Hill is best known for his 2001 novel, Any Known Blood and his memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. The main focus of this event was his third novel The Book of Negroes. Having won awards such as the

2007 Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize and the 2008 Evergreen award, this novel is considered a historic treasure.

During his speech, Hill reveals that the novel and title came to him from a

document he read at the University of Waterloo by James Walker. The original Book of

Negroes is the first documentation of black people in North America. Hill’s novel gives

specific names, ages and backgrounds of the 3,000 black people searching for freedom

after leaving New York for Nova Scotia. It is set near the end of the American

Revolutionary War. These people were promised land and liberty if they helped fight in

the war but instead received poverty, hunger, disease and plenty more adversity.

Hill intrigued his fans by giving them a taste of his new novel through a handful

of passages. He starts his novel off in a unique, unexpected way. The first scene doesn’t

begin on the ship with all the slaves like most of his fans expected, it starts off with the

main character Aminata and her three month journey through the desert before reaching

the ship. “I wanted the readers to feel her pain. This was her first harsh journey and the

readers needed to experience it to get completely into the story,” Hill elucidates.

During the book discussion, a more playful side of Hill’s character was revealed

as he had fans in stitches on numerous occasions. His humorous side was clearly

reflected onto this novel as he showed in a few of his passages. “It was difficult to write

humorously about such a painful topic but at times it was necessary for the sake of

getting the point across,” Hill explains to his crowd after reading one of his funnier

passages.

After a series of questions from the public, fans stood in line to have novels

signed by the brilliant author. An exciting time for Lawrence Hill that seems to only be

the beginning of his career as he claims, “I’m working on two novels at the moment and

have a children’s novel half done. The one contemporary novel is due in a few months. It

is a sad story but also has humour in it.” The crowd was very enthused after discovering

The Book of Negroes will be made into a movie in a few years.