Customer Reviews

Goree Island: Island of No Return

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This novel sheds light on a mysterious aspect of Senegalese history: the life and times of the signares. The fictional story of Sasha illustrates how the society of Goree Island developed around the signares, how in fact it came to be an island governed essentially by women. Wielding sexuality and intellect as equal weapons, Sasha forms Goree to her vision: a place where signares (local women of mixed heritage) keep their own customs, take temporary husbands, and actively aid those husbands in their business...which is primarily the slave trade.

Slavery is always present in the novel, as a given that everyone accepts as an inevitable part of life. Even many of the slaves seem to feel this way. It is discussed so matter-of-factly by all the characters, one almost forgets it is the same horror we think of today. Of course this blase attitude is probably close to what the people of the time would have believed, but it was off-putting at times for me as a reader.

Besides Sasha and the signares there are several other interesting characters, each bringing their bit of history to the novel: French bureaucrats from the Senegal River Company, determined to make money for the company and building a society in the process; soldiers, sailors and sea captains; English rivals for coveted French territory; Arab slave traders; free Africans and slaves. And my favorite character - Hadithe Zakale, the travelling storyteller who, following the African tradition, speads his tales from one end of the continent to the other. In this book, the tales all start and finish with Goree.

It's a shame there aren't more sources for this book, because it really was a very quick and interesting read. For anyone interested in this unusual aspect of African history, it is definitely worth picking up.