Torn from her home and carried across an ocean, Aminata Diallo enters a world shaped by violence, resilience, and the will to survive. As a child enslaved in South Carolina, she learns to hold tight to memory and language, the pieces of herself no one can steal.
War grants her a narrow chance at freedom, and in Manhattan she becomes a scribe, recording the names of Black men and women who earned passage to Nova Scotia. Yet life in the new colony brings fresh hardship, pushing her toward a journey that leads back to Africa and onward to London.
Across each place she touches, Aminata stands as witness, storyteller, and keeper of truth. Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Someone Knows My Name is a powerful portrait of endurance and hope.
