num_pages: 373
description: Structured as a triptych Africaville chronicles the lives of three generations of the Sebolt familyKath Ella her son Omar/Etienne and her grandson Warnerwhose lives unfold against the tumultuous events of the twentieth century from the Great Depression of the 1930s through the social protests of the 1960s to the economic upheavals in the 1980s.A century earlier Kath Ellas ancestors established a new home in Nova Scotia. Like her ancestors Kath Ellas life is shaped by hardshipshe struggles to conceive and to provide for her family during the long bitter Canadian winters. She must also contend with the locals lingering suspicions about the dark-skinned outsiders who live in their midst.Kath Ellas fierce love for her son Omar cannot help her overcome the racial prejudices that linger in this remote tight-knit place. As he grows up the rebellious Omar refutes the past and decides to break from the family threatening to upend all that Kath Ella and her people have tried to build. Over the decades each successive generation drifts further from Africaville yet they take a piece of this indelible place with them as they make their way to Montreal Vermont and beyond to the deep South of America.As it explores notions of identity passing cross-racial relationships the importance of place and the meaning of home Africaville tells the larger story of the black experience in parts of Canada and the United States. Vibrant and lyrical filled with colorful details and told in a powerful haunting voice this extraordinary novelas atmospheric and steeped in history as The Known World Barracoon The Underground Railroad and The Twelve Tribes of Hattieis a landmark work from a sure-to-be major literary talent.
language: English
title: Africaville
publisher: Amistad