Coda

Summary

Like most projects people have invested considerable time and energy into, this project began simply out of an appreciation for African literature. I spent many years reading and thinking deeply about African literature. At first, I read through the classics and earlier generations of African literature by engaging the work of Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Mongo Beti, Camara Laye, and Ama Ata Aidoo, to name just a few of the authors I drew inspiration from. From there, I began to read more deeply in contemporary African literature. Along the way, I engaged with major contemporary African authors such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, Uzodinma Iweala, Chris Abani, Fatou Diome, Taiye Selasi, Yaa Gyasi, and others. I was immediately drawn into their powerful stories. It became evident through a sustained engagement with this literature that the theme of migration, and its attendant themes of race and racism shifting identities, and the like, mirrored a lot of the African American literature reflecting the Great Migration. Works like Paul Dunbar's Sport of the Gods, Toni Morrison's Jazz, Richard Wright's 12 Million Black Voices, and William Attaway's Blood on the Forge were constantly in my thoughts as I engaged this new generation of African literature in relation to their African American literary ancestors. Like the African American migration novel, this new generation of African writers grappled with similar themes, albeit in a fashion often charting international migratory patterns. For example, many African American writers wrote about heading north to escape racial and political violence or to find better job opportunities. These themes are reflected in the African migration novel and solidified my desire to undergo an intense study of this body of literature.

My friend Cajetan Iheka and I often communicated about what new African literature we were reading and what aspects of the texts we drew inspiration from; we shared and collectively constructed syllabi and taught classes on Black migration narratives that compared African American, African, and Caribbean migration narratives. We tossed around the idea of producing an edited collection on these works. We left the themes and author selection quite open, not wanting to restrict contributors to a certain time frame or to a particular thematic concern. The result was a collection entitled African Migration Narratives: Politics, Race, and Space.