Brooke Obie, ‘Book of Addis’ Featured on Black Youth Project for #BlackGirlMagic
Harlem-based writer, Brooke Obie, has some ideas about freedom that you need to hear. In her debut novel, Book of Addis: Cradled Embers, the first book in a three part series, she tells the story of 17-year-old enslaved Igbo girl, Addis, who kills her enslaver, the president of the new country Amerika. In this story, Addis is on the run for her life and for the freedom of her people.
We spoke with Obie about why the slave narrative is still a necessary and revolutionary form of writing for Black people. We also discussed Obie’s own personal journey, and why she believes her novel is crucial at this political moment.
Black Youth Project: Tell me about yourself. How did you come to write this book?
Brooke Obie: I have had a few different careers. When I graduated from law school I went into political writing and research. I was obsessed with Barack Obama! But I quickly became disenchanted with politics and the legal system. It seemed like I was propping up a system I didn’t believe in. I needed to find a new way.
Around 2009-2010, I read The Hunger Games books, and they were enjoyable, but it upset me because all the dystopian fiction is just about white people fearing what they’ve done to Black and brown people the world over would be done to them. It’s them getting to have a revolution, having their big come up. I wanted to write a book about the roots of our oppression. I wanted to write something that would be liberating for Black folks. And that was something that I loved about fiction.
I believe that Black and brown people have been in dystopia for a very long time. The things white people fear now with the Trump presidency, we’ve been fearing. I wanted to shine a spotlight on our stories.
I wrote this book based on Oney Judge, an enslaved woman owned by George Washington. She ultimately escaped Washington and lived into her 70s—but Washington always pursued her. On her deathbed, reporters asked her how she felt about dying in poverty and if she made the right choice and she says, “Yes, I’m free.” It was so inspiring for me.
When I stumbled upon Oney’s story, I realized that I was never taught her history. When people say they are tired of slave stories, I say, “You don’t know enough!” People have been intentionally erased from our history, and until we understand that, we will never understand the depths of our history or what we have internalized.
I wrote this book in Black vernacular, after realizing I was still dealing with the anti-Blackness with which I had been socialized. I’d been socialized to dismiss Black vernacular as a sign of poor or no education, but the more I studied Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston and so many others, the more I found that educated Black people chose to write in Black vernacular because they saw the power and beauty in the way we speak. In a white world that tells you what is and isn’t “proper” English, writing in Black speech is inherently revolutionary: we have made English our own, and that is a sign of resistance. So I couldn’t write this book in Standard English; I wanted to write a book about Black revolution in a revolutionary way.