27/04/2024
(In Celebration of the 3rd Anniversary of TRILOGY OF TRUTH)
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BEING BLACK
REDISCOVERING A LOST IDENTITY
(Book Two of "Trilogy of Truth")
THE MAKING OF THE BOOK
Inspiration
My journey with "Being Black" began with my reading of "Twelve Years A Slave" by Solomon Northup and "The Challenge For Africa" by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai (I would also later read "Roots: The Saga of an American Family" by Alex Haley, and "Biko" by Donald Woods). The first two books impacted me profoundly and got me thinking, "What exactly is behind the plight of black people?"
In search of answers I read more, which caused me to start writing, titling my first essay, in 2015, "Being Black." By early in 2016 I had started working on the first draft of the book. It would eventually go through several alterations, as new information became available, but the final piece of the jigsaw was uncovered late in 2020, enabling me to finalise the manuscript early in 2021. Unfortunately, I had to cut off some research findings related to some aspects of history to reduce the volume.
Title and Subtitle
"Being Black" was the natural and original title for the book I had in mind to write, but even that changed with time as I tried to shift emphasis to humanity collectively, consequently testing "One Race" and "Humanity" as viable alternatives. In the end, however, I decided to be true to my original inspiration and reverted to "Being Black."
The subtitle proved even more challenging and kept changing, till the last moment. "The Less Told Story" and "Restoring A Lost Heritage" were top of the other versions I came up with, but just as the cover was being designed, I settled for "Rediscovering A Lost Identity."
Cover Design
Unlike the first book, I didn't have a clearcut image on my mind for the cover. So, although I gave a few suggestions, I made it clear to the designer that I was open to his own creativity.
I wasn't impressed with his initial submission, an image of a lady in black who looked like she was in mourning (why he opted for the image of a lady, I couldn't tell). The next submission was intriguing because the image had some element of mystery to it, but it had a grayish background. I suggested we used this image but with a black background. The result is the cover of "Being Black."
Take a peek
https://amzn.eu/d/35qs0Bd
(Next week, 24th April, will be about the third book, PAGAN WORLD)
