Negotiating Singularity and Alikeness: Esi Edugyan, Lawrence Hill and Canadian Afrodiasporic Writing

Abstract

Approaching the concept of the Afropolitan as one among various contemporary endeavours to redefine Afrodiasporic identities, this article compares Selasi’s gesture of self-naming to the debates on terminology and affiliation engaged in by Canadian Afrodiasporic writers, which shift between demanding recognition in the national imaginary and declaring allegiance to the African diaspora. Focusing on belonging, alikeness and (creative) singularity in the Kreisel lectures delivered by Esi Edugyan and Lawrence Hill, it proposes that a reading within recent theories of diaspora and neo-cosmopolitanism may provide a better understanding of the apparently contradictory allegiances and the open citizenship practiced by Afrodiasporic writers.