Migration and Return in Modern African Literature : Black Bodies in White Spaces

Using close readings of nine novels by African or African-descended novelists, this book examines three phases of African migration: departure, disillusionment and the impulse to return.

Using close readings of nine novels by African or African-descended novelists, this book examines three phases of African migration: departure, disillusionment and the impulse to return.

The experiences of African migrants in the diaspora are deeply inflected by the condition of living as Black bodies in white spaces. In this work, author Ernest Cole examines closely the narratives of migration and return presented in nine powerful novels by authors who include Chimamanda Adichie, NoViolet Bulawayo, Teju Cole and others. The novels reveal a reversal of expectations that migrants from Africa experience upon arrival in the West, a reversal prompted in part by the racial prejudice they are confronted with as Black individuals. As the author notes, the novels also illustrate the desire to return to the homeland as a better alternative to the precarious life in the West, even though such a move is not without its complications.

The study is divided into three parts with seven chapters. The first two chapters deal with the reasons for the departure of migrants from the continent, the next two depict the experiences of migrants in the West, and the last three focus on contemplations of the return journey home. Collectively, the chapters lay out three phases in the migration process: departure from home, disillusionment in the West, and return to the country of origin. Within this framework, the book uses displacement and dislocation to examine a host of themes—social alienation, alterity and the precarity of Africans in the diaspora.