ABSTRACT
The Routledge Handbook of the New African Diasporic Literature introduces world literature readers to the transnational, multivocal writings of immigrant African authors. Covering works produced in Europe, North America, and elsewhere in the world, this book investigates three major aesthetic paradigms in African diasporic literature: the Sankofan wave (late 1960s–early 1990s); the Janusian wave (1990s–2020s); and the Offshoots of the New Arrivants (those born and growing up outside Africa).
Written by well-established and emerging scholars of African and diasporic literatures from across the world, the chapters in the book cover the works of well-known and not-so-well-known Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone writers from different theoretical positionalities and critical approaches, pointing out the unique innovative artistic qualities of this major subgenre of African literature. The focus on the “diasporic consciousness” of the writers and their works sets this handbook apart from others that solely emphasize migration, which is more of a process than the community of settled African people involved in the dynamic acts of living reflected in diasporic writings.
This book will appeal to researchers and students from across the fields of Literature, Diaspora Studies, African Studies, Migration Studies, and Postcolonial Studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|261 pages
The Sankofan Wave (Late 1960s–Early 1990s)
chapter 3|11 pages
Paradise Destroyed
chapter 11|13 pages
Troubadours, They Traverse
chapter 13|15 pages
Living in the Interstices
chapter 14|11 pages
Tracing the ‘Missing Link’
chapter 16|12 pages
(W)righting the African Diaspora
chapter 19|12 pages
Tale(ing) Africa in a Global Context
part II|239 pages
The Janusian Wave (1990s and 2020s)
chapter 22|13 pages
Negotiating Home in New African Diasporic Writings
chapter 23|14 pages
Helon Habila's Narratives
chapter 25|12 pages
Chika Unigwe's Better Never than Late
chapter 28|12 pages
Cruel Optimism
chapter 30|15 pages
Holding the Global Gaze
chapter 34|17 pages
Fatou Diome, Abdourahman Waberi, and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
part III|100 pages
Offshoots of the New Arrivants (Born and Growing in Diasporic Spaces)