Book recommendation: THE HUNDRED WELLS OF SALAGA

This amazing book ,The Hundred Wells of Salaga, offers a remarkable view of slavery within Africa, centering around two strong and memorable female characters whose lives intersect in a surprising way.

Ayesha Harruna Attah wrote The Hundred Wells of Salaga since she is the descendant of a woman who was called ‘the slave’.

Attah ended up in the Salaga slave market of northern Ghana and not much else is known about where she came from. This book is to allow her to speak through Ayesha of the family she lost, of the routes she was forced on, of the man she would marry; of the time when probably unknown to her, the country was just on the throes of being colonized. A lot has been written on the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but less so on slavery within the continent of Africa, which has often been described as benign. This book is also an attempt to deconstruct ‘benign’ slavery, which to Ayesha was an oxymoron, and to piece together life on the continent before colonization.

Attah did extensive background research for this novel, particularly relating to West African slavery's connection to the emergence of slavery in the U.S. and is primed to discuss facts and themes relating to the transatlantic slave trade from before the point of transport from West Africa, her grandmother/family backstory and more. THE HUNDRED WELLS OF SALAGA deepens and expands upon a vibrant terrain of storytellers like NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, who seamlessly map the personal onto the political, and with great authority and literary skill, chronicle the lives of those straddling the fate of countries and colliding personal histories. The talented Loveis Wise, donned only the second African American female artist to design the cover of The New Yorker, oversaw the design for our beautiful original trade paperback edition. Thanks for your time.