The notion of an "African" cultural community across ethnic, national, and geographical boundaries has persisted in the imagination of writers, artists, and intellectuals. This idea has been reinforced by the migrations of writers of African descent throughout the world, criss-crossing frontiers of land and language. The very terms "African" and "Pan-African" remain sites of intellectual contention, generating a variety of political, literary, and cultural interpretations and ideological positions The essays in this volume demonstrate how concepts of Pan-Africanism, which, historically, were concerned with colonialism, racial identity, and African unity, extend the discussion of an "Africa" that exists beyond the continent and includes the Caribbean, the Americas, and Europe. Indeed the articles in this book update the definitions of Pan-Africanism by focusing especially on literary and cultural perspectives, with special reference to writers from Africa (North, South, East, West), the U.S. and the Caribbean, as well as arabophone, anglophone, francophone, lusophone, and creole linguistic communities. The volume is divided into five sections: "Migrating Words; " "Migrations, Journeys and Identifies; " "Migrations of Orality: Music, Poetry and Proverbs; " "Migrating Worlds: Redefining Africa's Borders; " and "Migrating Writers." Contributors include internationally recognized writers Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt), Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya), Dany Bebel-Gisler (Guadeloupe), Shimmer Chinodya (Zimbabwe), and Amiri Baraka (U.S.), as well as an array of scholars from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, who gathered at Stony Brook (State University of New York) for the annual A conference in 1996.