The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future within this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired from the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group clipping

Yetu holds the memories on her behalf people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, as well about The Deep distressing to be remembered regularly, is neglected by everyone, save one—the historian. This challenging role continues to be bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everybody, and the memories, painful and amazing, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. Therefore, she flees to the top, escaping the thoughts, the expectations, as well as the duties—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever likely to about her own former—and on the subject of the future of her people. If they’re all to survive, they’ll have to reclaim the recollections, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

Inspired with a song made by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future,” The Deep is usually vividly original and uniquely affecting.