1. What is the significance of the title Someone Knows My Name? We decided that the title wasn’t overly significant because only Chekura knew and used her name.  Aminata became a different person than the young Muslim girl she was in Bayo so it was the name she was born with, but it didn’t really define her.  When she returned to Africa the villagers weren’t excited because they knew her or her parents, but because they were names they were familiar with. 

2. What is your opinion about Hill's suggestion that Aminata's very youthfulness at the time of her abduction enables her emotional survival, even as some of the adults in her world show signs of crumbling? Her youth is what saved her.  Children need direction, even if it’s not good direction.  Her youth made her flexible and resilient and that’s what she needed to be to survive.  Fanta for example, couldn’t let go of her role as one of the head chief’s wives even after her capture.  She didn’t want to eat with Fomba even though the village rules no longer applied.  Aminata was eager to learn and took change in stride.

3. The section of the book set in the sea islands of South Carolina depicts eighteenth-century indigo plantations where African American slaves and overseers are left largely to their own devices during the "sick season"—a good half of the year. To what degree does this cultural and social isolation allow for an interesting development and interaction of African American characters in the novel? Appleby’s absence made them more self-reliant – Georgia hired herself out to deliver babies and traded and bartered her services.  We also discussed whether they’d have a higher or lower sense of self-worth than other slaves on different plantations – whether it was ‘we can look out for ourselves’ or ‘they don’t care about us at all and left us here to die’ especially during the sick season.

4. Aminata suffers some horrifying cruelties at the hands of her captors, but her relationships with her masters aren't always what you'd expect. How does Aminata's story reveal the complex ways that people react to unnatural, unequal relationships? Whether it was her time with Appleby or with Lindo or even her dealings with Wilberforce and Clarkson, Aminata never forgot that she wasn’t free and had to live within certain boundaries.  She may have performed work for Lindo, but she also had to pay him most of her wages for her midwife work.  When she found out that Lindo sold her son, she stopped talking to him since that was really her only form of rebellion.

5. During the course of the story, Aminata marries and has a family. Although she is separated from them, she is reunited from time to time with her husband and one of her children. What does the work tell us about the nature of love and loyalty?  Aminata and Chekura were deeply devoted to each other and in spite of their long separations they didn’t end up with other partners and kept looking for each other wherever they ended up.  They also tried to find out info about their children as they were able – their relationship was binding in spite of the circumstances.

6. Aminata struggles to learn and master all sorts of systems of communicating in the new world: black English, white English, and Gullah, as well as understanding the uses of European money and maps. How do her various coping mechanisms shed light on her character? She’s a survivor and resilient.  However, she held on to some naiveté – for example, she thought that since Alassane was an older African man who was a Muslim he would deal honorably with her even though he was really planning to sell her when he got the chance.

7. Aminata longs for her home. What is the meaning of home in the novel, and how does the meaning change as the novel progresses? Whether in Bayo, South Carolina, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone, or England she always held on to the sense of safety and security she’d felt with her parents – we thought that those feelings meant home to her, more than any place.

8. What does the novel tell us about survival? Which characters fare best and why? Fomba survived when he was allowed to utilize his skills as a hunter – but because he couldn’t speak he was killed.  Fanta would not have fared well because she refused to see herself as a slave, but held on to her role as chief’s wife.  Georgia, Debra, and Aminata did what they had to in order to make it. Chekura held on in spite of losing several fingers.  His search for his family kept him together til the end. 

9. As Aminata moves from slavery to freedom, she finds that freedom is sometimes an empty promise. At what points in the novel did you feel this was true? Did it change how you thought about the meaning of freedom?  We thought that Aminata never really had freedom – she was always dependent on someone for her survival and to be free you have to be able to take care of yourself and to be allowed to do so.  When she was a slave, she relied on her masters. When she was in Sierra Leone, they had to rely on the company. In England, she relied on the abolitionists.  Did not change our opinions of freedom.

10. Aminata is a woman of extraordinary abilities—she is skillful with languages, literate, a speedy learner, a born negotiator. Why did Hill choose this story to be told by such a remarkable woman? What effect do her abilities have on the shaping of the story?  Her skills with midwifery and literacy allowed her to make a name for herself in whatever community she was in – that allowed her to be known and admired and sought after.  Fanta was jealous of her for her natural intelligence. 

11. What do you think would be the challenges involved in writing a realistically painful novel that still offers enough light and hope to maintain the reader's interest and spirit? A lot of hard work but he added just enough positive light to make it bearable and interesting.  Thought the British loyalist angle was interesting.

12. What lessons does Aminata's tale hold for us in today's world?  The more you know, the more you grow – need book smarts and common sense to survive.  Also talked about lasting effect of slavery on gender roles and the single parent family today.

Overall, we enjoyed the book.