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Published May 2011
256 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
For almost five millennia, in every culture and in every major religion, indigo - a blue pigment obtained from the small green leaf of a parasitic shrub through a complex process that even scientists still regard as mysterious - has been at the center of turbulent human encounters.
Indigo is the story of this precious dye and its ancient heritage: its relationship to slavery as the "hidden half" of the transatlantic slave trade, its profound influence on fashion, and its spiritual significance, which is little recognized but no less alive today. It is an untold story, brimming with rich, electrifying tales of those who shaped the course of colonial history and a world economy.
But Indigo is also the story of a personal quest: Catherine McKinley is the descendant of a clan of Scots who wore indigo tartan as their virile armor; the kin of several generations of Jewish "rag traders"; the maternal granddaughter of a Massachusetts textile factory owner; and the paternal granddaughter of African slaves-her ancestors were traded along the same Saharan routes as indigo, where a length of blue cotton could purchase human life. McKinley's journey in search of beauty and her own history ultimately leads her to a new and satisfying path, to finally "taste life." With its four-color photo insert and sumptuous design, Indigo will be as irresistible to look at as it is to read.
"Lacking in storytelling impetus, this work is best suited for patient memoir or travelog fans interested in African cultural traditions and textile history." - Library Journal
"While memoir and history often become tangled, the book represents a valiant effort to recount the social and historical implications of a color." - Kirkus Reviews
"[A] memoir of longing, community, and personal maturation..." - Publishers Weekly
"A charming book: ethereal, wise, personal, as well as an imaginative exploration of what this color really might be, when you go under the surface of its just being about blue." - Victoria Finlay, author of Color: A Natural History of the Palette
"Indigo is a journey in every sense of the word, and one undertaken with an engaging passion. It is also, in the words of Miles Davis, Kind of Blue." - Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt
"Catherine McKinley's Indigo is a moving and lyrical journey through several continents and through the writer’s own internal landscapes. This beautiful and unforgettable book, like indigo itself, reaches deeply into all our lives." - Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I’m Dying
This information about Indigo was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Catherine McKinley is the author of The Book of Sarahs. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where she has taught Creative Nonfiction, and a former Fulbright Scholar in Ghana, West Africa, where she began her research on indigo. She lives in New York City.
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