Migration and Return in Modern African Literature

Black Bodies in White Spaces
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-64825-112-2
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 100, 230 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 481 g

Reihe: Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora

Using close readings of nine novels by African or African-descended novelists, this book examines three phases of African migration: departure, disillusionment and the impulse to return.

The experiences of African migrants in the diaspora are deeply inflected by the condition of living as Black bodies in white spaces. In this work, author Ernest Cole examines closely the narratives of migration and return presented in nine powerful novels by authors who include Chimamanda Adichie, NoViolet Bulawayo, Teju Cole and others. The novels reveal a reversal of expectations that migrants from Africa experience upon arrival in the West, a reversal prompted in part by the racial prejudice they are confronted with as Black individuals. As the author notes, the novels also illustrate the desire to return to the homeland as a better alternative to the precarious life in the West, even though such a move is not without its complications.

The study is divided into three parts with seven chapters. The first two chapters deal with the reasons for the departure of migrants from the continent, the next two depict the experiences of migrants in the West, and the last three focus on contemplations of the return journey home. Collectively, the chapters lay out three phases in the migration process: departure from home, disillusionment in the West, and return to the country of origin. Within this framework, the book uses displacement and dislocation to examine a host of themes—social alienation, alterity and the precarity of Africans in the diaspora.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ernest Cole, Ernest

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Afrikanische Literaturen
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part I: Flight
1. Reasons for Departure
2. Unfulfilled Dreams

Part II: Arrival
3. Disillusionment and Death
4. Psychological Depression

Part III: Return
5. Challenges to Reintegration
6. The New Hybridity
7. Constructive Liminality

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ernest Cole, Ernest
ERNEST COLE is the John Dirk Werkman Endowed Professor of English at Hope College, Holland, Michigan, and Associate Editor of African Literature Today.