This archive report was first published on 13 September 2019.
Liberia: From Liberia With History and Magic ¶
Published on September 13, 2019, Wayetu Moore's debut novel, She Would be King, offers a captivating blend of real history and magical realism, reimagining the chequered past of pre-modern Liberia.
The story revolves around three young people born in different countries, each possessing supernatural abilities that are both a blessing and a curse. Gbessa, a Liberian girl with unusually long red hair, lives a cursed existence in a small coastal village in pre-colonial Liberia of 1831. She is ostracised as a witch and banished to live in the forest.
Norman Aragon, a Jamaican boy with the ability to appear and disappear at will, breaks free from his harsh father's clutches. June Dey, a slave boy from Virginia, USA, flees his plantation after attacking the overseers who were whipping his stepmother, and makes a treacherous journey to freedom.
As the three escape their repressive circumstances, they make their way to Monrovia, which has been settled by free African Americans. Tensions are high between the African people and the elite American returnees. In the countryside, French traders are illegally capturing and exporting slaves.
Moore, a 35-year-old Liberian-American author, presents a marvellous blend of real history and magical realism, spiced with anecdotes from Liberian folklore and superstitions. The novel spans the three regions historically impacted by the slave trade, including the Caribbean and the US.
She Would be King is a story of identity, the search for one's place and sense of belonging, perhaps situations experienced by Wayetu Moore herself. The novel gives us an understanding of inter-tribal tensions in Liberia, the failed expectations of the American diaspora, and the complex relationship between them and indigenous people.
