When Leodine, a young white girl living in the Belgian Congo, discovers that her great-grandmother was African, she feels tainted and somehow unclean. New dilemmas arise in her life. Should she continue to befriend Yolande, the mulatto girl at her school? Or will her white friends begin to suspect she and Yolande share a common ancestry? With the onset of puberty, more problems arise: what will happen if she marries and has children? Amid much internal confusion, Leodine embarks on a journey, both physical and metaphysical, in search of her true identity. The Black Ancestor is part of Russo's award-winning African trilogy, which also includes Eclipse over Lake Tanganyika and Mixed Blood.