Black travel writing : : contemporary narratives of travel to Africa by African American and Black British authors / / Isabel Kalous.

• VerfasserIn: Kalous, Isabel,
• Place / Publishing House: Bielefeld : : transcript Verlag,, [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: American Culture Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (275 pages)

What does it mean for Black diasporic writers to travel to Africa? Focusing on the period between the 1990s and 2010s, Isabel Kalous examines autobiographical narratives of travel to Africa by African American and Black British authors. She places the texts within the long tradition of Black diasporic engagement with the continent, scrutinizes the significance of Black mobility, and demonstrates that travel writing serves as a means to negotiate questions of identity, belonging, history, and cultural memory. To provide a framework for the analyses of contemporary narratives, her study outlines the emergence, development, and key characteristics of the multifaceted genre of Black travel writing. Authors discussed include, among others, Saidiya Hartman, Barack Obama, and Caryl Phillips.

Table of Contents

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- I Introduction -- 1. Points of Departure: Tracing Roots/Routes to Africa -- 2. On the Current State of Research -- 3. Route Map: Theoretical Premises, Methods, and Objectives of this Study -- II Traveling Black-Traveling Back -- 1. Black Im/Mobilities Past and Present -- 2. Diasporic Return and the Significance of Africa in the Black Imagination -- III An Invisible/Kaleidoscopic Genre: Black Travel Writing -- 1. Defining the Terms: Genre and Genealogy -- 2. The Transnational Slave Narrative and the Roots of Black Travel Writing -- 3. Developments and Trajectories -- 3.1 Travel Writing as a Venue for Criticism -- 3.2 "What a Difference a Border Makes": Transformative Travel Experiences and Literary Self-Exploration -- 3.3 Twentieth-Century Black Writers in/on Africa -- IV Contemporary Black Travel Narratives -- 1. (Re)Writing Roots -- 1.1 Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995) -- 1.2 Isaiah Washington's A Man from Another Land: How Finding My Roots Changed My Life (2011) -- 2. Disenchanting Africa -- 2.1 Eddy L. Harris's Native Stranger: A Black American's Journey into the Heart of Africa (1992) -- 2.2 Keith Richburg's Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (1997) -- 3. Searching for Home -- 3.1 Ekow Eshun's Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in Africa and Beyond (2005) -- 3.2 Emily Raboteau's Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora (2013) -- 4. Tracing Routes -- 4.1 Caryl Phillips's The Atlantic Sound (2000) -- 4.2 Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (2007) -- V Conclusion: Ambiguous Arrivals -- Bibliography -- Primary Sources -- Secondary Sources.