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.
The examination of Leonora Miano's work offers a great example of how, through literature, a new form of Negritude could be identified. This paper intends to highlight her American (including Caribbean) literary inspirations and how the rising Franco-Cameronese novelist has compounded them with her African upbringing and family ties which allows her to reflect on what she calls "Afropeaness".
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
150 p., Contents: Postcolonial Caribbean women's fiction : a revisionist discourse
Caribbean women's literature in the post independence era Beka Lamb : a look at "befo' time Crick crack, monkey : "when monkey caan see'e own tail" Angel : "light the way for us!" Traversing thresholds.
