Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

I always say that I don't want another degree, but if I ever go back to school, I will be in somebody's PhD program in the Anthropology or Women's History department studying and researching women and our rich history.

When you read diverse literature and also when you read history, women have really suffered. A few years back, one of my students wrote a research paper about women during the Holocaust, and I wanted to cry a river. She wrote about women having cycles, giving birth, seeing their children killed, being pregnant, getting rape and getting pregnant all while being in a concentration camp. In Afghanistan, some of the first restrictions that were place by the Taliban were against women and boy were they severe. Reading some of those stories is enough to make someone want to start a revolution and free all of the Afghan women. There are so many books written about the African woman who was turned into a slave, but the novel Wench, by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, tells a tale that I have never heard before: slaveholders taking their slave mistresses to resorts for the summer in Ohio. The characters are all fictional, but the situation is not.

Dolen can write, that's all that I can say. This story is very captivating, because we get to know the characters quite well, she cleverly gives enough background information to help with understanding, and she tells a tale that really is not known, or should I say, it's a side of slavery that was not known to me.

She has characters that I really loved and others that I really wanted to understand. She shows sides of African women who were turned into slaves that really made me think and other sides that made me so proud to be of African descent.

I truly believe that everyone, but especially women, need to know the history of women world wide so that we can know women's strength and weakness.

If you find me in school somewhere, I'll be buried in a library, in the stacks, yes the stacks, studying women's history with many other people who value our history.

All praises to Dolen who is telling this part of slavery that needs to be told. You Go Girl!!

Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Please click on the link below to hear Dolen talk about this book:

People, get to reading! There is a whole lot to know out there........