Transnational Black Dialogues : Re-Imagining Slavery in the Twenty-First Century

Markus Nehl focuses on black authors who, from a 21st-century perspective, revisit slavery in the U.S., Ghana, South Africa, Canada and Jamaica. Nehl's provocative readings of Toni Morrison's __A Mercy__, Saidiya Hartman's __Lose Your Mother__, Yvette Christiansë's __Unconfessed__, Lawrence Hill's __The Book of Negroes__ and Marlon James' __The Book of Night Women__ delineate how these texts engage in a fruitful dialogue with African diaspora theory about the complex relation between the local and transnational and the enduring effects of slavery. Reflecting on the ethics of narration, this study is particularly attentive to the risks of representing anti-black violence and to the intricacies involved in (re-)appropriating slavery's archive.

Markus Nehl focuses on black authors who, from a 21st-century perspective, revisit slavery in the U.S., Ghana, South Africa, Canada and Jamaica. Nehl's provocative readings of Toni Morrison's A Mercy, Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother, Yvette Christiansë's Unconfessed, Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroesand Marlon James' The Book of Night Women delineate how these texts engage in a fruitful dialogue with African diaspora theory about the complex relation between the local and transnational and the enduring effects of slavery. Reflecting on the ethics of narration, this study is particularly attentive to the risks of representing anti-black violence and to the intricacies involved in (re-)appropriating slavery's archive.

Markus Nehl focuses on black authors who, from a 21st-century perspective, revisit slavery in the U.S., Ghana, South Africa, Canada and Jamaica. Nehl's provocative readings of Toni Morrison's A Mercy, Saidiya Hartman's Lose Your Mother, Yvette Christiansë's Unconfessed, Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes and Marlon James's The Book of Night Women delineate how these texts engage in a fruitful dialogue with African diaspora theory about the complex relation between the local and transnational and the enduring effects of slavery. Reflecting on the ethics of narration, this study is particularly attentive to the risks of representing anti-black violence and to the intricacies involved in (re- )appropriating slavery's archive Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Slavery – An “Unmentionable” Past? 1. The Concept of the African Diaspora and the Notion of Difference 2. From Human Bondage to Racial Slavery: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (2008) 3. Rethinking the African Diaspora: Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother (2007) 4. “Hertseer:” Re-Imagining Cape Slaver y in Yvette Christiansë’s Unconfessed (2006) 5. Transnational Diasporic Journeys in Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes (2007) 6. A Vicious Circle of Violence: Revisiting Jamaican Slavery in Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women (2009) Epilogue: The Past of Slavery and “the Incomplete Project of Freedom” Works Cited