Sierra Leonean actress and director Anni Domingo has a new book coming out. The novel is titled Breaking the Maafa Chain and will be published in the US by Pegasus Books on February 1, 2022 and in the UK later this month by Jacaranda.

Breaking the Maafa Chain tells the story of two sisters captured into slavery and the differing paths their lives took. One ends up in Queen Victoria’s court, the other in an American plantation. The novel was shortlisted in the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize and won Myriad Editions First Novel Competition. A portion of the novel was published in the New Daughters of Africa Anthology.

Read the publishers description and see pre-order options below.

A richly imagined story of two sisters’ struggle for true freedom in the mid-nineteenth century as their paths diverge in the middle passage—one to the court of Queen Victoria, the other to an American plantation.

Salimatu and her sister Fatmata are captured, sold to slavers, renamed and split apart. Forced to change their names to Sarah and Faith, they end up on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Faith is taken to America, where slavery is still legal and she is stripped of all rights. Sarah ends up in a Victorian England and as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Can the two sisters reclaim their freedom and identity in a world that is trying to break them down? Will these once inseparable sisters survive without each other? And if they do find each other again, will they find the other changed beyond recognition?

Based on the true story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Breaking the Maafa Chain is by turns epic and intimate and will take the readers on a journey of loss, survival, and hope.

Anni Domingo is a lecturer in Drama and Directing at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham and Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama. Her poems and short stories have been published in various anthologies.

Pre-Order Breaking the Maafa Chain: Amazon