African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
192 p, "Markham's memoirs begin with a return to post-volcanic Montserrat to rediscover the now abandoned village of Harris’ and his grandmother’s old house and his meticulous and moving reconstruction of his boyhood in that house – a grand house that made the family feel that settling in the Harrow Road end of Maida Vale was a distinctly ‘downwards’ move for a cultivated Caribbean family. And it is Markham’s wryly humorous navigation between the poles of his family’s confident sense of their worth and the racial attitudes of those times that makes his account of his travails in the rag-trade, his pop-singer ambitions, the discovery that they were living next door to a leading member of the British Union of Fascists, and his involvement with the ‘angry-young-men’ shifts in 1950s British culture such a rewarding and human document."
Compares memoirs by Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, and Caryl Phillips. The Caribbean-born Afro-Britain Caryl Phillips published The Atlantic Sound (2000), an account of African diasporic identity that moved between understanding, compassion, and a harsh belief that Africa cannot take on the role of a psychologist's couch, that "Africa cannot cure." These three memoirs offer insight into the complex and highly contested nature of identity throughout the African diaspora, and present very personalized reflections on the geography, politics, and history of Africa as a source of identity and diasporic belonging.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
248 p., Draws attention to a neglected body of récits d'enfance, or childhood memoirs, by contemporary bestselling, prize-winning Francophone Caribbean authors Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Gisèle Pineau, Daniel Maximin, Raphaël Confiant and Dany Laferrière, while also offering new readings of texts by Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Edouard Glissant, Joseph Zobel, Françoise Ega, Michèle Lacrosil, Maurice Virassamy and Mayotte Capécia.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
456 p., On January 12, 2010 a massive earthquake laid waste to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands of people. This narrative describes the incredible suffering and resilience of the people of Haiti. It explores the social issues that made Haiti so vulnerable to the earthquake -- the very issues that make it an "unnatural disaster." The account includes stories from other doctors, volunteers, and earthquake survivors.
