“[It’s] often not what you get around stories that involve African Americans. Most of us cannot trace our histories all the way back to a slave ship or to a particular country in Africa because the records of the enslaved were not recorded in detail. So it’s incredible and very powerful that these descendants know the actual stories of their ancestors that came from Africa.
For the podcast Roberts interviewed not only the descendants of those on slave ships, but close to 100 other historians, archaeologists and community members about their unique relationships to this history. “By the end of it, I realized that these weren’t just stories of death, that these were stories of life, too,” Roberts recalls.
“It’s a complicated history, but that’s the way history is supposed to be.”
― Tara Roberts, National Geographic
What booksellers are saying about Written In the Waters
- A compelling tale of the power and pain of reclaiming history. Discovering the world of Black underwater archeologists determined to uncover and teach about slave shops, forces Roberts to confront her families traumic legacies. It also guides her to reclaiming the strength and joy in her family history. A National Geographic explorer, her story reads well with fellow Explorer Rae Wynn-Grant’s Wild Life.
― Jan Blodgett, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina | BUY
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A memoir, a message, and a deeply felt paean to history. Inspired by a trip to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Roberts begins a journey of diving into the sea to uncover the stories of sunken slave ships. She weaves her personal narrative into the depths of the history she shares all the while highlighting the reasons these sites go underresearched and stories untold. Moving, inspiring, and essential reading!
― Michelle Cavalier, Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs, Louisiana | BUY
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This immersive memoir takes readers on a deep dive into an unforgettable experience of connecting to our past, ourselves, our future, and each other. With a narrator who is easy to root for and spend time with, we learn about the power of dissolving boundaries around our identities while reckoning with our history. Written in the Waters shows us that finding our place in the world doesn’t have to be a lonely journey.
― Thais Perkins, Reverie Books in Austin, Texas | BUY
About Tara Roberts
Tara Roberts is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence who documents shipwrecks that once carried captive Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. Their stories—and the stories of the divers, historians, archaeologists, and communities she meets along the way—became the podcast series Into the Depths, which has been featured in more than 200 media outlets. Tara is a TED Ignite Fellow at the 2025 TED conference. In 2022, Roberts became the first Black female explorer to grace the cover of National Geographic magazine and was named the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year. A former Fellow at MIT’s Open Documentary Lab, she has worked as an editor for publications including Essence and CosmoGirl, published her own magazine, and edited several books for girls. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
