Africa si(gh)ted in Spanish: an introduction

Abstract

The introduction to this special issue, “Africa-Si(gh)ted in Spanish,” presents readers with essays that illustrate the creative energy emerging in various countries in Africa and the diaspora. The works analyzed may be viewed as exophonic literature, demonstrating how contemporary African writers are shaping African Hispanic identities that defy colonial nation-state notions of belonging and assert the centrality of Africans in interpreting the world. The “Africa-si(gh)ted” approach’ as we term it, involves simultaneously prioritizing perspectives drawn from African lived experience and reclaiming the place of Africa as an ever-evolving site of knowledge generation and negotiation about Africans and African-descendant people. We propose Spanish as a language of affiliation and relation amongst creators from different cultural traditions—drawing on Edward Said and Édouard Glissant respectively—to offer a deeper understanding of the novel communities of belonging that are being forged in African Hispanism.