A tale of slavery on Caribbean islands

When I read The Book of Night Women by Marlon James a few years ago, it took away my peace of mind for some days with its terrific power of describing the ordeals and tribulations suffered by the female slaves in Jamaica during the colonial period, during 18th century to be more precise. This book is hard to put down once a reader begins to go through it. The authorial excellence of the young Jamaican writer emanates from each page of his books including The Book of Night Women.

On a sugar plantation in Jamaica in the concluding years of 18th century, a female slave passed away while giving birth to a baby girl. But the baby, called Lilith, survived. As she grows up, it is strongly presumed by other inhabitants of the plantation that this girl has an extraordinary sensory perception, called ESP in short. She unwittingly caught the attention of the leader of a secret cabal of Jamaican women all of whom were slaves. They hold clandestine meetings at night and know some tricks of necromancy. Moreover, these women had another ulterior motive and they talked about their strategies to carry out their plans during the stealthy meetings. That motive was to revolt against their masters and to set themselves free from the stigma of slavery. This novel vividly describes the ferocity including sexual assaults the female slaves had to undergo under the inhuman circumstances that prevailed in Jamaica during those years. Lilith witnesses some of the atrocities committed by the colonial masters on that plantation and she infers perhaps her mother also had to stand all these repressions while she was alive. The depiction of slavery and brutality in this novel by Marlon James triggers a sense of pathos in the minds of readers and the readers eagerly wait for justice to strike the culprits of the book. This is how Marlon James makes us a part of his story because the feeling of agonies that occupied the mind of Lilith flashes across our thoughts too and we feel almost equally distressed while turning over the pages of this moving novel. A number of questions huddle at the back of our minds—can the female slaves succeed in their rebellion? Can they get themselves liberated? Or are they going to be subjugated to more horrible forms of torment in case they fail? The Book of Night Women tells how the diabolic impacts of slavery jeopardized innocent people on the colonized Caribbean Islands during the previous centuries. Through the engrossing story of The Book of Night Women, Marlon James almost touches the authorial height of towering novelists like Toni Morrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Alice Walker. This novel reminds us of some other anti-slavery masterpieces like Toni Morrison's Beloved, Sharon Draper's Copper Sun, and Julius Lester's Day of Tears. All these novels denounce slavery, injustice, exploitations, abuse of power and add a substantial amount of value to the indomitable spirit of human beings to fight against evil forces and thus these tales including The Book of Night Women jingle with a deeply universal appeal.

Marlon James has made Lilith one of the unforgettable characters in the arena of current works of fiction. Her growth from the tender age of a lonely, deserted girl to the cachet of a hardy and courageous woman drives forward the plot of the novel. As the story progresses, she gradually turns out to be an emblem of love, confidence, hope and moral fortitude. She has been characterized by Marlon James as a quiet girl, but her strength lies hidden under cover of her quietude. Silence is sometimes much stronger than loud expostulations—Lilith is an embodiment of this aphorism. And this is how she represents the focal theme of the novel because the night women all were soundless during daytime but they plotted to fight back during the dark hours of midnight. As literature is regarded as an avocation that often presents messages to readers by means of symbols and allegories on top of plain words, The Book of Night Women by Marlon James is filled with noteworthy instances of symbolic craftsmanship of the author. Marlon James received Dayton Literary Peace Prize as well as Minnesota Book Award in 2010 for The Book of Night Women.

Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. He has addressed Jamaican history in most of his novels. History cannot be isolated from literature. Marlon James has secured global recognition by achieving different valuable awards for the masterfulness he exercised in fictionalizing history in a trustworthy and striking way. In his most admired novel The History of Seven Killings, Marlon James touched upon the political violence that destabilized Jamaica during the years spanning from 1970 to 1990.

The reviewer is Senior Lecturer, Department of English, Metropolitan University, Sylhet.