Manu Herbstein – author of Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Narrating the Atlantic Slave Trade: Manu Herbstein on "Ama" and the Silences of History EBG: First of all, thank you for agreeing to answer our questions.It is an honour to have this conversation with you.Today, we will focus on your novel Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, which received the 2002 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.The book addresses a difficult and painful history, and through it, you bring to life a voice that is too often absent from the record.To begin, we would like to ask about that central choice: you placed an enslaved Black woman at the heart of the story.What kinds of dilemmas -narrative, ethical or political -did you face in making that decision?MH: To answer this question, I need to think back some thirty years.I don't recall ever having made the carefully considered choice that your question implies.I first visited Elmina Castle soon after setting up a temporary home and office in Cape Coast in late 1961.It was then in use as a Police Training College.I was totally ignorant of its historical significance and there was no tourist guide to enlighten me.In the years that followed, the Castle was opened to tourists.I took visitors there, friends and family members, and must have listened to the spiel of several guides.Fast forward to 1994.I read reports in the newspapers of the violent disturbances in northern Ghana -disturbances which came to be known as the Guinea Fowl War.The participants were, on one side, the Konkombas, and on the other, the Dagombas and Nanumbas.My questions as to the underlying cause yielded the answer, "As for the Northerners, they are like that," implying an inherent general tendency to violence.That struck me as, at best, unsatisfactory; at worst, racist.