Novel set in the Deep South – Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

Submitted: 7th June 2020

Story of enslavement in Louisiana -Afia Atakora

Novel set in the Deep South – Conjure Women by Afia Atakora – Interested in visiting a part of history from a very unique perspective? Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. A mother and daughter live on a plantation in Louisiana. The Civil War ends and the slaves remain. But freedom is still a fair way off..

There’s talk of magic and conjuring and the plantation is rife with suspicion.

Setting – The Slave plantations of America’s Deep South

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It’s rare that a book has a feeling that lingers so much after you’ve read it, that it seeps into your dreams and you shiver both with fear and admiration for it.

We’re taken deep into the American South and a shameful period of history before the Civil War. The setting here is a plantation house where many slaves have to work for their white owners. There is no violence or detail spared here – you are a slave yourself here in the book feeling their pain, fear and yet hope too, during the darkest moments. While reading you remember that this fictional tale is borne from reality and that, the shiver on your skin which lingers throughout, is there to tell you that people from history are speaking to you now via this story. When the war ends, the slaves remain and it’s this that the novel uses to further conjure up a vivid picture of some of the most fascinating characters I’ve read about in a while.

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Slaves living on a plantation on their own? What do they do? How do they live without the structures of before? When someone is so controlled and living in fear, can they ever be truly free? This book is going have you thinking, wondering, hoping and remembering. Varnia is the last mistress of the house. That was before. Now, there’s Miss May Belle who is a slave and also a healer/ conjuring woman and her daughter Rue.

A woman with such gifts as Miss May Belle is not like the others. She can heal people, change people and help them. But what happens when a child is born ill or when illness comes a calling?

The characterization and language – oh the language and dialogue – of his novel are just wonderful. I know these people. I have met them and am now genuinely bereft at having had to leave them behind.

A powerful read. (There are scenes of violence and abuse so beware) but the character’s voices and that conjuring power rises above everything.