Introduction

African memoirists in the diaspora are commonly known for their nostalgic evaluation of home and the many lessons and representations that come with it. This whole body of work is an essential compilation of memoirs of authors with African origins, as what has been established in previous chapters is that African memoirs are essentially and existentially different from memoirs of authors from other parts of the world. African memoirs of slave descendants are marked by forceful migration and hundreds of years of racial discrimination, social subjugation, psychological traumas, and related plights of Africans forcefully taken into the diaspora.

However, memoirs of authors who migrated out of their volition, political exile, or self-styled exile and economic reasons are different from the memoirs of generations of slave descendants. They are media explicating precarious situations for which they left their homeland: the cultural differences between their homelands and abroad, and the indelibility of their youthful days in their home countries. Despite these differences, what is common to these variants of memoirs is that they reflect on human conditions, the continuous juxtaposition of cultural differences, and the double consciousness of being of African descent yet living in a foreign land that is sociopolitically different from home. There is also the idea of home as a physical space of structures, experiences, and history, while there is also the notion of home in relation to skin color, acclimatization to their new homes (abroad), and the constant reminder to syncretize being Black and being a minority in a new country.

The foregoing is a reiteration of the characteristics of many African memoirs. The aforementioned explications are not entirely capable of characterizing the nature of African diaspora memoirs. However, they capture a big section of what African memoirs are like. What cannot be erased from the motives of Africans in diaspora writing memoirs is that they write with the intention of getting their stories told. In African history, whether as erroneously told by Europeans or as told by Africans themselves, there is a fissure created by the unavailability of a scientific mode of writing. Most of what Africans later wrote were transcribed from oral sources, arts, and motifs. Therefore, it has always caused a debate about authenticity.