In her book Louisiana, Erma Brodber reflects on the alliances that should exist between the African American and Afro Caribbean peoples, symbolically repairing the fissures that exist between the two, while addressing an uncommon subject in Caribbean migrant literature. Brodber's literary themes toward the unification of the relationships shared amongst the black diaspora articulate the legal tensions and national differences that can impede these alliances. Although Brodber's novel approaches this by creating a reconnection of the African diaspora in a borderless and nationless transmigration, and sometimes through a spaceless spirit world, Page argues that in reality this reunification is affected by the rules of the state that simply cannot be ignored.;
Fox discusses Lydia Cabrera, a novelist and short story writer many consider the mother of Afro-Cuban studies. Examined are her contributions to Cuba's Africanized popular culture, as well as her bridging the cultures of France, Africa and Cuba.;
Van Kempen discusses the songs and traditions of the Saramaccan peoples of the Upper Suriname. The music and lyrics of the Saramaccans depicts the troubles the ethnic groups have experienced in the 1990s from transmigration ordered by the government, typically lamenting or singing the praises of their old African villages, and cursing Western engineers for the uprooting of their cultures.;
Simpson discusses the rise in West Indian literature, especially addressing the increase in critical interest from the rest of the world for the abundance of West Indian short story collections that have appeared within the last two decades. The decades of the 1940s and 1950s are examined as the Golden Age of West Indian short stories, and compared to the single author collections that are now supported through popular sales.;
The African diaspora's search for both a collective voice and a freedom of identity has led many writers to be liberated only at the expense of being marketed and made part of the publishing machine. Forbes compares this marketplace to the "trading post," referring to the contact points where African slaves were bought and sold. Searching for new targets, many times the African diaspora's voice is cut by sales driven marketing. In illustrating his points, Forbes focuses on five travel narratives in this essay, including books by such authors Mary Seacole, Marlene Nourbese Philip, Jamaica Kincaid, Terry McMillan, and John Edgar Wideman.;
Birbalsingh discusses Indo-Caribbean culture, and the origins and influences of Indo-Caribbean short stories, beginning with the marriage of Indian and African oral traditions. Several authors from throughout Indo-CAribbean literature are profiled, including A. R. F. Webber, V. S. Naipaul, and Samuel Selvon.;
