Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way. The scope spans most of the lives of Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in 1936 Spain, and Roser Bruguera, a music student taken in by Victor’s family and, later, his brother Guillem’s lover and the mother of Guillem’s child. The story follows them over nearly sixty years, beginning with the tumult of the Spanish Civil War. Guillem is killed fighting against the Fascists, news that Victor can’t bear to tell Roser initially. After surviving separate and terrible circumstances that leave them refugees in France, where authorities treat them with contempt and worse, the two marry for practical reasons in order to join Pablo Neruda’s mission transporting over 2000 Spanish exiles to Chile aboard the S.S. Winnipeg . In Santiago, the Dalmaus find many Chileans sympathetic to the Spaniards, while others make them unwelcome. With a poetic ...
Both heroines are proud and resilient, qualities that carry them through considerable personal turmoil. Aminah, who had used to spend her time daydreaming, selling maasa (millet porridge) to people on the caravan when it passed through Botu, and caring for her younger twin sisters, is taken captive by horsemen along with her siblings and forced to march far from home. The pain and loss she experiences along the way are addressed plainly.
Although she’s part of the Gonja royal family and is accordingly self-assured, Wurche also experiences a loss of freedom after she agrees to marry a prince of Dagbon to seal an alliance. After Wurche’s father sees an opening to seize power for himself, infighting among the Gonja people further destabilizes the twin towns of Kpembe and Salaga, which had already been thrown into chaos due to the disruption of the local kola nut trade.
In the late 19th century, Salaga, as we learn, is a center for intra-African trade of all kinds, including that of human beings. The novel’s title alludes to this fact; the water from Salaga’s many wells was used to wash the many slaves brought there for sale. In a Q&A at the end, Attah reveals that her great-great-grandmother had been enslaved and sold at the market at Salaga, but little else is known about her. Aminah’s story is the author’s imagined version of her life, while details about royal women such as Wurche are better documented.
Their journeys are recounted without cliché or stereotype, and the secondary characters are well-rounded also. These include Moro, a slave-trader who seeks a way out of the terrible business, and Helmut, a sympathetic German man. The novel also includes insightful detail on the land’s spoken languages, foods, and religions, including how Islam (which Wurche’s family observes) can be used to establish both order and control over women’s lives.
The novel is just 230 pages long, but it has the heft of a work of much greater length. I recommend it for its insight, smooth readability, and its power of bringing an important aspect of the history of the slave trade to light in fiction.
The Hundred Wells of Salaga is published tomorrow in the US by Other Press, with the beautiful cover art above; it was previously published in Nigeria by Cassava Republic. Thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC at my request.
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