Patoimbasba Nikiema’s Exile and Return in African and Caribbean Literature (Liverpool University Press) will be published October 28, 2025. Antonia Wimbush (University of Melbourne) writes that this book “offers a new perspective on literary representations of exile by focusing on the return journeys made by male and female protagonists.”
Description: Exile is often perceived as an irreversible rupture, a state of loss and estrangement. Yet, in African and Caribbean literature, exile and return form a dynamic interplay that reshapes personal, collective, and national identities. This book challenges traditional notions of exile as suffering and return as simple reconnection with homeland and loved ones, arguing that in many instances exile fosters deep introspection and transformation, while return serves as active engagement with the homeland’s sociopolitical and cultural realities. Through close readings of works by transnational writers, namely Khadi Hane, Malika Mokeddem, Dany Laferrière, and Alain Mabanckou, this study explores how exile and return create new forms of belonging, political consciousness, and cultural renewal. It gives voice to exiles navigating the displacement, alienation, and contradictions of the return. At a time when migration remains a polarizing issue in political discourses across Europe and the United States, this book reconsiders exile beyond narrative despair, revealing its potential as a space of reinvention. By bridging exilic imagination and homeland realities, this book offers a fresh perspective on how African and Caribbean writers envision the return as an Afrotopian project, a participative endeavor that rethinks the future of Africa and the Caribbean as a space of possibilities.
Patoimbasba Nikiema is an Assistant professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Miami. His research focuses on Postcolonial Studies, with a particular interest in Afrotopia, Sub-Saharan, and Caribbean literatures and cultures.
For more information, see https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781836245360
Patoimbasba Nikiema’s Exile and Return in African and Caribbean Literature (Liverpool University Press) will be published October 28, 2025. Antonia Wimbush (University of Melbourne) writes that this book “offers a new perspective on literary representations of exile by focusing on the return journeys made by male and female protagonists.” Description: Exile is often perceived as