ABSTRACT
The problematic question of the meaning of an African identity retains its sense of urgency throughout the book. Dorothy Padmore first-hand experience brought Wright closer to an answer that nevertheless remains vague. Aside from the 'strangeness of a completely different order of life' that he encountered and that made him aware of his own 'Westernness, it was the historical experience of slavery that set him apart from the people whom he met on his trip. At the same time it was that very experience which connected him to them. The difficulties entailed in that positioning stand out clearly in his description of the slave forts of Osu, Cape Coast, and Elmina. Those were the places where the painful journey of the African diaspora had begun, and it was here that Wright completed his voyage.
