
The Salt Roads
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Narrated by:
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Bahni Turpin
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By:
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Nalo Hopkinson
About this listen
In 1804, shortly before the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue is renamed Haiti, a group of women gather to bury a stillborn baby. Led by a lesbian healer and midwife named Mer, the women's lamentations inadvertently release the dead infant's "unused vitality" to draw Ezili - the Afro-Caribbean goddess of sexual desire and love - into the physical world.
As Ezili explores her newfound powers, she travels across time and space to inhabit the midwife's body - as well as those of Jeanne, a mixed-race dancer and the mistress of Charles Baudelaire living in 1880s Paris, and Meritet, an enslaved Greek-Nubian prostitute in ancient Alexandria.
Bound together by Ezili and "the salt road" of their sweat, blood, and tears, the three women struggle against a hostile world, unaware of the goddess's presence in their lives. Despite her magic, Mer suffers as a slave on a sugar plantation until Ezili plants the seeds of uprising in her mind. Jeanne slowly succumbs to the ravages of age and syphilis when her lover is unable to escape his mother's control. And Meritet, inspired by Ezili, flees her enslavement and makes a pilgrimage to Egypt, where she becomes known as Saint Mary.
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confusing
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And I loved the ending! Just finished another book and hated the ending because everything was left undone. You could tell that it's a hopefull book one.
The Salt Roads is complete. I was left wanting to know more, to find out what happens next, but nothing was left undone. I was surprised at how quickly, effortlessly, and eloquently the author ended the book. How it all came together and the picture it left behind of these women, these African women...
I have no connection to thier story's, other than a belief that we all come from one place, and that all of our humanities are intertwined and same. The humanity displayed in this novel left my soul smiling. I think I'll go and listen to it again
Didn't want it to end!
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The historic figures given a voice
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Salt Roads
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Not sure how to feel
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Nalo illustrstes that salt, the taste of blood, sweat, tears, and the essence of a lover, is the essence of the sea that carried the slave ships, and also “the white man’s obeah” that bound the slaves to the new land. In reality, the salt roads were trade routes, essential connections between distant lands. In the same way, the gods travel the salt roads within the “storystream."
In the midst of turmoil, these powerful black women carved out a delicious pleasure in the midst of a horrible pain inflicted on them by some chosen masters and some forced- including god.
Although there was some abrupt juxtaposition, I feel this also lended to the value, complexity and intensity of the character lives in this story. As they were abruptly removed from their lives and their worlds changed without notice.
I could go on about this book, but rather I encourage you to listen for yourself.
Raw truths
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Loved the narrators and story
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Love this book!
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such an incredible book
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Quite a great read
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