African Literature Association Book of the Year Award in Scholarship – Honorable Mention 
 
"Critically engages current topical issues with sophisticated scholarly readings. There is a tone of the transgressive that gives this work the kind of edge that always provides transcendence."--Carole Boyce Davies, author of Caribbean Spaces

"An authoritative and original study, characterized by meticulously researched scholarship, which focuses on the female body across a fascinating corpus of literary production in the Caribbean and elsewhere. This refreshing and effective interdisciplinary approach extends the boundaries of traditional literary analysis."--E. Anthony Hurley, author of Through a Black Veil

"Brilliant. Alexander helps us to understand the complexities of race, gender, sexuality, migration, and identity as they intersect with creativity. A must-read for those interested in women's writing today."--Renée Larrier, author of Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean


Using feminist and womanist theory, Simone Alexander takes as her main point of analysis literary works that focus on the black female body as the physical and metaphorical site of migration. She shows that over time black women have used their bodily presence to complicate and challenge a migratory process often forced upon them by men or patriarchal society.


Through in-depth study of selective texts by Audre Lorde, Edwidge Danticat, Maryse Condé, and Grace Nichols, Alexander challenges the stereotypes ascribed to black female sexuality, subverting its assumed definition as diseased, passive, or docile. She also addresses issues of embodiment as she analyzes how women's bodies are read and seen; how bodies "perform" and are performed upon; how they challenge and disrupt normative standards.


A multifaceted contribution to studies of gender, race, sexuality, and disability issues, African Diasporic Women's Narratives engages with a range of issues as it grapples with the complex interconnectedness of geography, citizenship, and nationalism.


Simone A. James Alexander is professor of English at Seton Hall University and the author of Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women.

Sample Chapter(s):

Excerpt

Table of Contents

Awards
College Language Association Creative Scholarship Award - 2015
African Literature Assoc. Book of the Year Award - Scholarship Honorable Mention - 2016

A timely examination of the ‘embodied resistance to medical diagnosis’. . . .[that] persuasively conveys the urgency for a transnational reevaluation of health regimes.
--Contemporary Women’s Writing

Examines migration flows and transnational ties through a gendered framework that challenges a predominantly male-constructed migratory process. . . .An insightful (re)interpretation of black women’s experiences both in the United States and beyond.
--Women's Studies

A significant study of the black female body. Contributes to the dialogue on the recognition of the female body in society.
--Small Axe

With impressive scholarship, lucid and elegant style, and an independent-minded analysis . . . [Alexander] presents a critically engaging and in-depth study of race, gender, sexuality, and identity as a lived and contested reality.
--College Language Association Journal