The Black Atlantic Reconsidered: Black Canadian Writing, Cultural History and the Presence of the Past by Winfried Siemerling (review)

Although much research has been done on the Black Atlantic, Winfried Siemerling’s book The Black Atlantic Reconsidered is the first comprehensive and reconsidered study of the evolution, networks and achievements of black Canadian literature in the context of the Black Atlantic world. A broader understanding of black Canadian literature is gained by illuminating the crucial role of transnational and transatlantic networks and by demonstrating the difficult relationship between facts, history and language and images used by authors from the beginning until today. As such, this book shows the contribution of black Canadian writers to the North American literary and cultural history and the richness of African Canadian literary culture.

Siemerling’s aim is both to explore the intertextual relations of ‘black writing in its Canadian and diasporic context’ (p. 6) and to show ‘the importance of the past in many contemporary black texts’ and the distinction between ‘fact and truth’ (p. 26). With a chronological approach and with sources written in English and in French, this study traces the evolution of the first black narratives from the ‘Book of Negroes’ (1783) to the images and languages used in the contemporary writing by black Canadian authors like George Elliott Clarke and Lawrence Hill.

The book is structured into two main parts: part I, ‘Early Testimony’, shows the evolution, development and transnational networks of slave and free-black writings on images like ‘slavery’ and ‘freedom’ during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Part II, ‘The Presence of the Past’, explores how past aspects like slavery still affect contemporary writing, music and movies. In his conclusion, Siemerling reflects the current state of research and encourages the reader to consider ‘black Canadian writing as a national designation that implies transnational routings’ that ‘provide exceptional opportunities for other transnational, comparative scholarship’ (pp. 360–1). In short, by stressing the evolution of the intertextual relationships of early and contemporary writing and the transnational and transatlantic networks, Siemerling shows the cultural achievements and diversity of black Canadian Literature.

Elegantly written, clearly structured and highly informative with copious notes on sources including detailed lists of selected works and bibliography, Winfried Siemerling’s book is an excellent and well-respected scholarly achievement that has won the Gabrielle Book Prize. In-depth, original and an interdisciplinary read, The Black Atlantic Reconsidered is a vital contribution to black Canadian studies, to the fields of black Canadian literature, North American cultural history and to transnational and transatlantic studies, and will inspire further interdisciplinary research. After reading this book many readers will indeed be surprised how diverse, rich and transnational the cultural achievement of black Canadian literature and identity is.