ABSTRACT

This book makes a significant addition to the field of literary criticism on African Diaspora literatures. In one volume, it brings together the novels of eight transnational African Diaspora women writers, Yaa Gyasi, Chika Unigwe, Chimamanda Adichie, Imbole Mbue, NoViolet Bulawayo, Aminatta Forna, Taiye Selasi, and Leila Aboulela, and positions them as chroniclers of African immigrant experiences.

The book inspires critical readings of these writers’ works by revealing emerging trends in women’s literature as they are being determined and redefined by immigration. As transnational subjects, the writers engage various meanings of mobility and exhibit innovative aesthetic styles; they create awareness on gender identities and transformations, constructions of home and belonging, as well as the politics of citizenship in the hostland. The book also highlights the importance of reverse migrations and performance returns to the homeland as an expression of human desire for home and belonging, and taken as a whole, it enhances our understanding of how migration and transnational existence are (re)shaping immigrant subjects.

This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and researchers of African Diaspora literatures and gender studies, who will find this book beneficial for investigating critical trends, approaches to transnational literature, and for comprehending the diasporic burdens that transnational immigrants bear.

chapter |26 pages

Introduction

Transnationalism and NewAfrican Diaspora Women Writers: An Overview

part I|59 pages

Emigration

chapter 1|19 pages

Power of the Story

Mediating Africa's Diasporic Ruptures in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing

chapter 2|20 pages

Specters of Slavery, Sites of Violence

Reading Unigwe's On Black Sisters Street as a “Neo-Slave” Narrative

part II|94 pages

Negotiations

chapter 4|21 pages

Navigating the American Dream

Diaspora Families and Transnational Dilemmas in Mbolo Mbue's Behold the Dreamers

chapter 5|18 pages

“The Home of Things Falling Apart”

Narrating and Performing Home(land) in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names

chapter 6|18 pages

Enter the Afropolitan

Taiye Selasi's Cultural Significations in Ghana Must Go

chapter 7|15 pages

Narrative Identity in Ancestor Stones

Aminatta Forna's Postcolonial and Revisionist Discourse

chapter 8|20 pages

Gendered Journeys and Self-Discovery

The Transnational Context in Leila Aboulela's Bird Summons

part III|39 pages

Returns

chapter 10|14 pages

Conclusion

Telescoping the Future of New African Diaspora Women's Literature