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The Book of Night Women

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About this listen

 From the author of the National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf and the WINNER of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings

"An undeniable success.” — The New York Times Book Review

The Book of Night Women is a sweeping, startling novel, a true tour de force of both voice and storytelling. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they—and she—will come to both revere and fear.

The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings and desires and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman in Jamaica, and risks becoming the conspiracy’s weak link.

Lilith’s story overflows with high drama and heartbreak, and life on the plantation is rife with dangerous secrets, unspoken jealousies, inhuman violence, and very human emotion—between slave and master, between slave and overseer, and among the slaves themselves. Lilith finds herself at the heart of it all. And all of it told in one of the boldest literary voices to grace the page recently—and the secret of that voice is one of the book’s most intriguing mysteries.©2009 Marlon James; (P)2009 Penguin Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt Caribbean
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very well written and read. the writing was very vivid and descriptive. the narrator did a fantastic job with the performance.

very good.

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I’ll admit, I started this book with a quizzical eyebrow. The beginning was a bit confusing for me, and I had a lot of “What was she seeing?... Why was she there?... Wait.. who’s that?” Yet each chapter would reel me in, and I’d want to know more. I was so fascinated by these well-rounded characters and felt like I was reading a Caribbean slave narrative... maybe my own ancestor, perhaps. I borrowed it from my local library and had to own it.

Reels you in little by little

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Marlon James is one of the few male authors with the ability to write from a female perspective with authenticity. The word that first comes to mind when hearing this novel is raw. It is raw and unforgiving in its emotions and descriptions.

This book also reminded me of one of my favourite quotes by Solzhenitsyn, from The Gulag Archipelago :

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts.

Powerful

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There are so many aspects of this ‘gift’ I’ve been given that I need to praise but I cannot. I am simply a puddle of tears.

I’m struggling to recover from two traumatic brain injuries over a six year period and can’t no longer work as a result. I can no longer read, traditionally, using my own eyes, so the entire experience is different but this is not my first book ‘read’ using Audible so the intense depth of emotion, awe, despair, empathy does not come entirely from the added performance of the reader.

This book has changed me. I cannot un-see what I’ve just heard. And that statement is so ignorant and so inadequate. I have been changed at every level of my ( ? soul ? ) ? What do I do now?

This is a book that is so well written and so emotionally and historically important, I cannot read it and simply carry on with my life.

I Cannot Stop Crying . . .

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Difficult to listen to but a timely reminder of the inhumanity of slavery. Beautifully read.

Horrifying and brilliant

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