Black Travel Writing

Contemporary Narratives of Travel to Africa by African American and Black British Authors

Bibliographic Data

ID5772165
AuthorsIsabel Kalous (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, corresponding author)
Year2021
Publication date2021-11-24
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueBlack Travel Writing (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherTranscript Verlag (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.14361/9783839459539
OpenAlexW4200265864
Open LibraryOL35565298M
ISBN9783839459539
LanguageEN
References cited55

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

Black British · Identity negotiation · Travel writing · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Travel Writing and Literature