What to Read After Visiting AGGV's Afroquatics Exhibition

A selection of books that explore some of the themes from Afroquatics: A Call and Response Below the Surface. Created by Kemi Craig, the City of Victoria’s Artist in Residence, this exhibition will be running at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria from Feb 17 - May 26 2024.

Updated January 22, 2024
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Ada's room
Otoo, Sharon Dodua
A kaleidoscopic novel spanning generations and continents, that reveals the connections between four women in their struggle for survival. A woman in 15th century West Africa named Ada buries her child and confronts a Portuguese enslaver. A woman in Victorian England named Ada...
Call and response : stories
Moeng, Gothataone
Richly drawn stories about the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate relationships, tradition and caretaking in a rapidly changing world. A young widow adheres to the expectations of wearing mourning clothes for nearly a year, though she's unsure...
The deep
Solomon, Rivers
ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society--and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award...
Scattered seed : a novel
Howard, Francine Thomas
Three sisters navigate the horrors of the Middle Passage in a powerful historical novel about family, honor, and the will to live, by the author of The Daughter of Union County. Timbuktu, western Africa, 1706. Folashade, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a professor of...
Skin of the sea
Bowen, Natasha
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The must-read Black mermaid fantasy series that #1 NYT bestselling author Nicola Yoon calls "epic and original," in which one mermaid takes on the gods themselves. Perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and anyone who can't...
Washington Black : a novel
Edugyan, Esi.
Winner of the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize A dazzling, original novel of slavery and freedom, from the author of the international bestseller Half-Blood Blues When two English brothers arrive at a Barbados sugar plantation, they bring with them a darkness beyond what the slaves have...
National Geographic A Diver's Guide to the World : Remarkable Dive Travel Destinations Above and Beneath the Surface
Miller, Carrie.
Dive travel experts Carrie Miller and Chris Taylor traveled to 50 inspirational locations around the world-spending more than 250 hours underwater-to bring you this one-of-a-kind guidebook. In these rich and inviting pages, you will find travel stories and practical tips to make the most of...
Enslaved : the sunken history of the transatlantic slave trade
Jacobovici, Simcha
A riveting and illuminating exploration of the transatlantic slave trade by an intrepid team of divers seeking to reclaim the stories of their ancestors.  From the writers behind the acclaimed documentary series Enslaved (starring Samuel L. Jackson)...
A fistful of shells : West Africa from the rise of the slave trade to the age of revolution
Green, Toby
By the time of the 'Scramble for Africa' in the late nineteenth century, Africa had already been globally connected for many centuries. Its gold had fuelled the economies of Europe and the Islamic world since around 1000 CE, and its sophisticated kingdoms had traded with Europeans along the coasts...
In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
Sharpe, Christina
In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake." Activating multiple registers of "wake"--the path behind a ship, keeping watch with the dead,...
A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging
Brand, Dionne
"One enters a room and history follows; one enters a room and history precedes. History is already seated in the chair in the empty room when one arrives." Now entering its third decade in print, Dionne Brand's groundbreaking A Map to the Door of No Return has emerged...
Reality+ : virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy
Chalmers, David John
Virtual reality is genuine reality; that's the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of "technophilosophy," David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life...
Supersight : what augmented reality means for our lives, our work, and the way we imagine the future
Rose, David
NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS WINNER -- NONFICTION * 2022 IPPY AWARDS BRONZE MEDALIST -- SCIENCE For thousands of years, human vision has been largely unchanged by evolution. We're about to get a software update. Today, Apple, Google, Microsoft...
The underworld : journeys to the depths of the ocean
Casey, Susan
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From bestselling author Susan Casey, an awe-inspiring portrait of the mysterious world beneath the waves, and the men and women who seek to uncover its secrets "An irresistible mix of splendid scholarship, heart-stopping adventure...
Homegoing
Gyasi, Yaa
Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book Prize A New York Times 2016 Notable Book One of Oprah's 10 Favorite Books of 2016 NPR's Debut Novel of the Year One of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016 One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016

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