The release date for the English version of 'The Deep' by
Rivers Solomon is Nov 2019. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
Inspired by the Hugo Award nominated song "The Deep" from Daveed Diggs' rap group Clipping, this brilliantly imaginative novella follows the water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard as they build their own underwater society and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future.
For her people, the water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women cast overboard by their masters, Yetu preserves the memory of a perfect life in the deep. With the exception of the historian, everyone has forgotten about their traumatising past. It is Yetu who has been given this challenging responsibility.
It is the memories—painful and amazing, tragic and dreadful and miraculous—that are killing Yetu because she remembers for everyone. She escapes the recollections, the obligations, and the duties by going to the surface, where she finds a world her people have long since abandoned.
More about her own history and the destiny of her people than she ever could have imagined would be revealed to Yetu. They must take back the memories, take back their identities, and accept who they really are if they are all to live.
The Deep is a brilliantly distinctive and very moving song that was inspired by a song recorded by the rap duo Clipping for the This American Life episode "We Are In The Future."