It is important to remember that, because of very specifi c historical repercussions, the state of ‘being African American’ differs greatly from other experiences of exchange and immigration in the United States. Historically, African Americans have faced fi rst the misery of slavery and then the agony of segregation, which put their experience as Americans in a different, yet interrelated category to that of other ethnic groups in the country. In the Sixties, the Civil Rights Movement brought attention to African American art forms that had been neglected, stereotyped or misinterpreted by mainstream American trends. Issues of cultural defi nition became paramount in an effort to provide a channel for African American expression which could be understood and given the dignity it deserved. The list of art forms redefi ned as African American in the late twentieth century includes, of course, literature. ‘African American literature’, argues Psyche WilliamsForson, ‘has been the one place where black people have been able to defi ne themselves with and against the order of the day’.2 Fiction, in particular, has taken on a very particular cultural meaning for African Americans, in which ‘the signs of cultural hegemony, food politics and delineations of power are omnipresent’.3