‘She Would Be King’ reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper and left for dead, but she still survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virigina, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British coloniser and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them.