The Deep

Right on the tail of a book about women living on an ocean planet, I've finished another book about the sea. This time, it's a mythological tale based on the horrors of history, our history. During the slave trade in the U.S., pregnant African women were thrown overboard from the slave ships if they became sick or just in general too much of a hassle. This mythology is about the infants born as these women died by drowning. The infants were transformed into water-breathing, finned beings, the wajinru. Their descendants live together under the sea and multiplied. The origins were too painful to remember, so they chose one wajinru to remember everything, the historian. Once a year the wajinru gather and the historian shares their remembrances. Then after a few weeks, they all forget and continue their lives without the pain of the past. This story was inspired by a song by Daveed Diggs' rap group clippings. which was inspired by an earlier concept by a techno group. Diggs' song was nominated for a Hugo, as was this novella. It won the Lambda Literary Award for Sci Fi/Fantasy/Horror in 2020. I loved it.

Come visit my blog for the full review...