Childhood in Contemporary Diasporic African Literature: Memories and Futures Past, by Christopher E. W. Ouma

Abstract

While there are various historiographies of African literature, the focus on childhood in African literature is a unique entry point in this book. Chris Ouma, in his first full-length book, initiates a monumental discussion of literature on African diasporic childhood, on the premise of failed post-independence dreams, the plurality of African diasporic identities, and the transformations that arise out of this matrix. Ouma convincingly argues that the literature on childhood—using memories, symbolic images, and figures—helps to construct contemporary identities. These identities are based on intersections of language, nation, race, ethnicity, gender, class, and spatiotemporal multi-directionality.