• Written in the Waters

  • A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging
  • By: Tara Roberts
  • Length: Not Yet Known

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Written in the Waters

By: Tara Roberts
Pre-order: Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $29.95

Pre-order for $29.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

This searing memoir by a National Geographic explorer recounts one woman's epic journey to trace the global slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean—and find her place in the world.

For fans of adventurous women’s memoirs like Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and Jesmyn Ward's Men We Reaped.

When Tara Roberts first caught sight of a photograph at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History depicting the underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, it called out to her. Here were Black women and men strapping on masks, fins, and tanks to explore Atlantic Ocean waters along the coastlines of Africa, North America, and Central America, seeking the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them—and started on a path of discovery more challenging and personal than she could ever have imagined.

In this lush and lyrical memoir, she tells a story of exploration and reckoning that takes her from her home in Washington, DC, to an exotic array of locales: Thailand and Sri Lanka, Mozambique, South Africa, Senegal, Benin, Costa Rica, and St. Croix. The journey connects her with other divers, scholars, and archaeologists, offering a unique way of understanding the 12.5 million souls carried away from their African homeland to enslavement on other continents. But for Roberts, the journey is also intensely personal. Inspired by the descendants of those who lost their lives during the Middle Passage, she decides to plumb her own family history and life as a Black woman to help make sense of her own identity.

Complex and unflinchingly authentic, this deeply moving narrative heralds an important new voice in literature that will open minds and hearts everywhere.

©2025 Tara Roberts (P)2025 Audible, Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Written in the Waters

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.