Someone Knows My Name
Narrator’s Journal

This is probably the most difficult piece of literature I have ever written. Putting myself into the shoes of the many slaves that were being discriminated against was very hard, and not something I could ever picture myself living through. Creating the character of Aminata Diallo was also something that was very challenging for me as a writer. I was writing the story as if I was a woman, a young woman at first that gradually aged throughout the years through different places with many slave owners. I had to capture the feeling of what I think it would have been like if I were in Aminata’s shoes and being sold as a slave. This was the absolute most challenging part of writing this novel. Aminata is such a heroic and charismatic character, that even though she goes through so many problems, and sees so many horrific sights throughout her life, watching her friends be beaten, and so on, I really felt that in order to make this novel a success, I needed to sit there and really think about the character that I wanted to create and bring to life in this novel. I also wanted to make sure that Aminata possessed some skills that the other slaves were not fortunate enough to have learned. For example, Aminata possesses the skills of a midwife, she was taught this by her mother at a young age. I also felt it was necessary that Aminata learned how to read and write.

When writing the novel, I also felt it was necessary to have Aminata torn from her husband and daughter, and thrown into the Revolutionary War. I felt that this was very realistic, with families being torn apart either because of war, or because they were being sold to another slave owner. This crucial part of the novel was necessary because now we see Aminata fighting with everything she has, in order to stop slavery from continuing. Aminata believes that slavery is