It’s very moving and a great honour for this book to have been shortlisted for the ASA Best Book Award. This book is in many ways the fruit of 30 years of research, and it means a lot to me for it to be recognised in this way. I’m very grateful and admiring of everyone at ASA for continuing their immense work, even given the current toxic political climate relating to Africa and people of African descent in the US.
Professor Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture
28 September 2026
Professor Green's book on life alongside the slave trade shortlisted for prize
The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa by Professor Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture in the Departments of History and Languages, Literatures and Cultures, has been shortlisted for the African Studies Association (ASA) Best Book Prize.
The ASA Best Book Prize recognises the most important scholarly work in African studies published in English and distributed in the United States during the preceding year.
Professor Green’s book explores the life of Crispina Peres, the most powerful slave trader in the West African port of Cacheu, who was arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition in 1665. The book was described by the historian Toyin Falola as "returning the African woman to world history, not as a footnote but as a moral compass – a testimony to the power and beauty of religion and the humanity of power".
Using historical records to build a picture of life in seventeenth-century Cacheu, Professor Green reveals on the one hand the reality of the slave trade, the emergence of European empires, and the town’s global significance, and on the other, as put in a review in the American Historical Review, "the very human condition of living in a port town connected to the world in seventeenth-century West Africa, with its pleasures and sorrows".
The town of Cacheu – based in modern day Guinea-Bissau – was globally connected to places as far-flung as China, India, Brazil and Colombia. Peres was a key figure in the town, who challenged the patriarchal structures of empire.
Professor Green asks why the Inqusition was interested in policing her faith, after rumours swirled about her taking treatments supplied by djabakós, who were Senegambian healers.
The winner of the ASA Best Book Prize will be announced in December 2026.
Read more about The Heretic of Cacheu in History Today and the TLS.
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Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture