Introduction

In many respects, the Handbook of African Literature responds to the concern expressed in Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson’s compendium, African Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory regarding the relative invisibility of African literary criticism. Specifically, The Handbook of African Literature aims to serve as an aggregation of studies of African literary texts embodying some of the newer critical approaches from the end of the twentieth to the early decades of the twenty-first century. This chapter discusses ‘Journeys, Geographies, Identities,’ consider questions pertaining to identity in African literature from a number of overlapping perspectives: travel, citizenship, vocation and avocation. The most visible identity connected to travel in African literary studies is that of the Afropolitan. It also discusses ‘The World of and beyond Humans’ seek to go beyond what Cajetan Iheka as the human-centeredness or anthropocentrism of African literary studies.