Portrayals of Africans in Europe and the USA in Modern African Literature (Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Annual Convention)

Diverse African literary works portray the experiences of African characters in the United States and other Western nations. Such works include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, Imbolo Mbue's Behold the Dreamers, and NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names. What do such portrayals tell us about imagined ideas of Western opportunity and promise? What do these types of narratives reveal about shared and divergent outlooks and lifestyles in African and Western communities? What different kinds of political and gender-based experiences are dramatized in these works, and what are the similarities and differences between the views of such experiences by African and Western characters? Please submit 200-word abstracts through your new or previous Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) user account by going to https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla.html and following the links.