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A review by abagoflobsters
Of One Blood; Or, the Hidden Self by Pauline E. Hopkins
4.0
As the first novel by an African-American writer to feature both the setting of Africa and African characters, Pauline Hopkins’ Of One Blood is of immense historical value. Of One Blood is also considered to be among the earliest African-American speculative or science-fiction. It features a technologically and culturally superior Ethopia as its main character’s ancestral home, revealed in prophetic mysticism and gothic occurrences while commenting on issues of ancestry and race in early 19th Century America. The novel can be described as domestic romance, mystic adventure, and racial discovery tale.
As many have stated, and as can be expected with the genre, this book has serious issues when pressed under modern conventions of plot, most of which stem from its purpose as an “Afrocentric Fantasy for a Black Middle Class Audience.” The novel certainly succeeds in offering its readership ownership of a historical past that equaled western myth, and a cathartic vindication for the dystopian remnants of slavery through Reconstruction. For more on this, I would recommend John Gruesser’s critical article: “Of One Blood: Creating an Afrocentric Fantasy for a Black Middle Class Audience.”
I would recommend this to anyone interested in early 19th century African American authors, domestic fiction, adventure novels, early speculative fiction, and early American science fiction.
As many have stated, and as can be expected with the genre, this book has serious issues when pressed under modern conventions of plot, most of which stem from its purpose as an “Afrocentric Fantasy for a Black Middle Class Audience.” The novel certainly succeeds in offering its readership ownership of a historical past that equaled western myth, and a cathartic vindication for the dystopian remnants of slavery through Reconstruction. For more on this, I would recommend John Gruesser’s critical article: “Of One Blood: Creating an Afrocentric Fantasy for a Black Middle Class Audience.”
I would recommend this to anyone interested in early 19th century African American authors, domestic fiction, adventure novels, early speculative fiction, and early American science fiction.