The river where blood is born / Sandra Jackson-Opoku.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jackson-Opoku, Sandra.

Contributor:

Joanna Banks Collection of African American Books (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Goddesses, African.

Goddesses, African--Fiction.

African American women--Fiction.

African American women.

African American families--Fiction.

African American families.

Africa--Fiction.

Africa.

Genre:

Epic fiction.

Fiction.

Penn Provenance:

Banks, Joanna (donor) (Banks Collection copy)

Physical Description:

viii pages, 4 unnumbered pages, 401 pages, 3 unnumbered pages : illustrations, genealogical table ; 25 cm

Edition:

First Edition.

Distribution:

New York : Published by Ballantine Books.

Place of Publication:

New York : One World, 1997.

Summary:

A delicate tapestry unfolds within these pages, a story stitched together with the threads of Ananse, the spider of African myth, and the wisdom of the ancestors. The River Where Blood Is Born takes us on a journey along the river of one family's history, from ancient Africa into today's America. It is through the lives of Mother Africa's many daughters that we understand the real meaning of roots: the captive Proud Mary, who has been savagely punished for refusing to relinquish her child to slavery; Earlene, who witnesses her father's murder at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan; Big Momma, a modern-day matriarch who can make a woman of a girl; proud and sassy Cinnamon Brown, whose wild abandon hides a bitter loss; smart, ambitious Alma, who is torn between the love of a man and the song of her soul. From its African origins, The River Where Blood Is Born carves a course across two centuries and three continents, from the eighteenth-century Gold Coast through the perilous Middle Passage, from antebellum Barbados to forty acres in turn-of-the-century Illinois. Its rambling river runs to Chicago in the 1960s and climbs the mountains of North Carolina and Montreal in the '70s, crosses over to London in the '80s, and makes other world wanderings before bending back toward Africa in the '90s. It is in this time and place that, at last, a chosen daughter is summoned home. But what must she sacrifice to honor the River Mother's call? That question is at the heart of this remarkable novel. For women everywhere, Alma's journey is a reminder of the price we all pay for forgetting and for remembering.

Contents:

Prologue

Part I: Headwaters

Part II: Estuary

Part III: Backwater

Part IV: Tributaries

Part V: Confluence

Part VI: Watershed

Epilogue.

Notes:

"Artwork for 'The Spider's Web' and 'Beadwork' copyright © 1997 by Don Davis."

"Text design by Holly Johnson."

"First Edition: September 1997."

"Jacket painting by Michael Brown. Jacket design and collage by Kristine V. Mills-Noble."

Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Awards - Fiction, Winner, 1998

Local Notes:

Kislak Center Banks Collection copy presented to the Penn Libraries in 2018 by Joanna Banks.

Banks Collection copy: dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

034539514X

OCLC:

36760289