As
it says on the front cover, this is an important book. Not only does
it look at the black/white situation in American, it also examines
the same situation in other countries, more specifically Sweden. In
translation the book could be called 'A Drop of Midnight', though I
am not sure that it has been translated into English.
Jason
has grown up in Sweden. He is neither black nor white - his father a
black American and his mother a white European - and as he approaches
middle age, he realizes that he does not know who he is. As a child
he dreams of being white; as a young man he embraces rap and reggae
and wishes that he was black. A brown man with a foot in both white
and black worlds, he does not really know where he belongs.
Although
the book examines his childhood and the bullying that resulted from
him not looking like everyone else, the focus of En droppe midnatt
is Jason's successful search for his identity. Travelling to
America and connecting with relatives he slowly pieces together the
family tree, which has survived despite the dark shadow of slavery. He
gradually understands who he is and how he fits into the twenty-first
century in a country that is just as far from his roots in America as
from his original homeland in Africa.
At
times I felt that the book became somewhat submerged in the network
of small anecdotes about Jason's extended family, but at the same time I realized
that these were the stories that gave the book its raison d'etre. As
his aunt Juanetta says: If you constantly tell a child that he is
worthless, lazy, ugly and a thief; if you beat him and treat him
without respect, what kind of person do you think he'll become? What
do you think he'll end up doing? We are that child. Four hundred
years of abuse, pain and murder have made us what we are today.
Beautiful, terrifying, dysfunctional and strong. (Page 175).
The photo of Timbuktu is from Sveriges Radio