Title : The Book Of Night Women
Author : Marlon James
Context : The Book of Night Women (2009) is a historical fiction novel by the Jamaican author, Marlon James. The story is set in the late 1700s in Jamaica about a young woman named Lilith born into slavery at the end of the eighteenth century, on a sugar plantation in Jamaica.
Synopsis : Lilith challenges the boundaries of what is expected of her. The startling, sweeping novel is a true achievement of storytelling and voice, both. Born into slavery, the slave women around her also, during the time of her birth, recognize the dark energy that all of them will come to fear and revere in the future. The women call themselves as The Night Women. Since long, a plot has been planned by these women. When Lilith grows to come of age, she discloses the extent of power she has. The women start seeing Lilith as an important key to their plotting plans. However as Lilith starts understanding her own identity, desires and feelings, she begins pushing at the edges of what can be imagine for a slave woman’s life in Jamaica. Lilith takes the risk of becoming the weak link of the conspiracy.
Her story spills with heartbreak, high drama, unspoken jealousies, rife life on the plantation with dangerous secrets, very human emotion between the overseer and slave, between master and slave, amongst the slaves themselves and lots of inhuman violence. In the story, Lilith finds that she is at the heart of it all. The young writer, James Marlon himself is the real revelation of the book-the secret to the insistent prose and stirring imagery who at once is breathtakingly wholly and daring in command of his work.
Other works by the Author :
2014 – A Brief History of Seven Killings
2019 – Black Leopard, Red Wolf
2005 – John Crow’s Devil
2020 – Fight of the Century Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases