At the Crossroads

Reviews / Votes

At the Crossroads is guaranteed to remain an authoritative reference for many years to come. * Canadian Journal of African Studies * At the Crossroads: Nigerian Travel Writing and Literary Culture in Yoruba and English is a rich and refreshing addition to the growing body of literature on African popular and cultural studies. What distinguishes the book is not just its comparative finesse but its conscious attempt at globalizing literary aesthetics from the rich repertoire of sources which form the crux of travel writing. Rebecca Jones has successfully repositioned the Yoruba aesthetic canvass by weaving both the metaphysical realities with the literary and cultural imperatives. -- African Studies Quarterly This original and highly engaging book looks at a century-long history of writing by Nigerians in which journeys are the organising theme. It encompasses a diversity of genres, formal and informal - Yoruba newspaper columns, a memoir, several generations of Yoruba fiction, a contemporary travel blog, diasporic narratives of belonging and return. This is travel writing not as imperial gaze but as a mode of engaging with and articulating new experiences of sociality and space 'from within'. Rebecca Jones's study breaks new ground in reading English- and Yoruba-language texts alongside each other, recognising their long history of interaction and cohabitation. The sparkling, illuminating, insightful interpretations of the texts makes the book a joy to read.' - -- Karin Barber, Emeritus Professor of African Cultural Anthropology, University of Birmingham 'This is a rich and nuanced book that admirably succeeds in reframing research on travel writing by drawing attention to the multifaceted history of travel writings by African authors which scholars have long ignored.' - -- Thomas G. Kirsch, Professor of Ethnology & Cultural Anthropology, University of Konstanz '[A]n important study of travel writing in its most expansive sense. By focussing on writing in Yoruba and English, Rebecca Jones has created a work which challenges the efficacy of colonialist binaries of tradition/modernity, local/global, civilised/native, bringing together an astonishing range of writing including formal travelogues, diaries, letters, newspapers, fictional texts, autobiographies, blogs and oral narratives. This is a crucial and urgent study which innovates not only African literary studies but textual analysis more broadly, challenging us to offer more nuanced, contextualised and rigorous understandings of the intersection of print culture, narrative and the negotiation of ideas of self, region, community and nation as lived and living experiences.' - -- Madhu Krishnan, Professor of African, World and Comparative Literatures, University of Bristol