9 Books by Black Girls About Travel, Belonging and the Seek for Home

I’m a part of an extended lineage of courageous Black girls writers who determined to depart residence searching for journey and themselves.

When I started researching books for my 2010 around-the-world journey—which is cataloged in my upcoming memoir, Where I’m From: A Poetic Journey Across Five Continents—I didn’t even know to search for books by Black girls vacationers. I didn’t know anybody who had traveled extensively, not to mention whereas Black.

In preparation for my journey, I bear in mind studying Eat, Pray, Love, the quintessential journey memoir on the time; The Rough Guide to First-Time Around the World to virtually put together for my journey; A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, the place Donald Miller displays on story and climbs Machu Picchu in an effort to make his life a greater narrative; and Go Girl: Finding Adventure Wherever Your Travels Lead, which a pal purchased me as encouragement.

Unbeknownst to me, there was one other Go Girl!: The Black Woman’s Book of Travel and Adventure, an anthology edited by Elaine Lee, that includes journey tales by Black girls together with Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde.

At the time, I felt like an anomaly. I wasn’t positive the world wished to listen to tales about Black girls looking for residence, self and which means by crossing orders.

In retrospect, the fashions existed then—albeit few, and I’m grateful to say there are much more now: tales that discover the inside lives of Black girls throughout the globe, who go away residence searching for journey, spirituality, peace, therapeutic and pleasure. These writers discover the world whereas navigating questions of race, id, belonging, love, residence and the way to construct a life and a self overseas.

Over the years, I’ve immersed myself within the tales of different Black girls, not solely as literary fashions, however as encouragement that the world may really wish to hear my story, my classes and my reality. These books jogged my memory I’m a part of an extended lineage of courageous Black girls who determined to depart residence searching for journey and themselves. The following memoirs, anthologies and novels discover motion throughout borders whereas grappling with historical past, race, id, belonging, religion, pleasure and in the end, residence.

Lived Truths

All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes

By Maya Angelou

In this memoir, Maya Angelou travels to Ghana within the Sixties looking for a way of residence in Africa. What she finds as an alternative are questions round id, exile and returning to a spot that’s each acquainted and overseas. Like lots of Angelou’s autobiographical works, it’s a pleasure to witness this continuation of her transformation from younger Maya into the prolific author and political drive she would turn out to be.

Go Girl!: The Black Woman’s Book of Travel and Adventure

Edited by Elaine Lee

This is the guide I want I had for my 2010 journey.

Published in 1998 and edited by Elaine Lee, Go Girl! is among the first main journey anthologies written by and for Black girls. It’s the OG of Black girls’s journey books. Featuring 52 essays, the gathering explores journey, id, spirituality, racism, belonging and discovery throughout the globe lengthy earlier than Black journey turned mainstream.

Go Girl 2, the second version, was simply as expansive and have become a continuing companion on my 2024 distant working journey throughout the African diaspora. And this 12 months, I used to be actually a bit starstruck that Lee not solely learn my memoir, however generously blurbed it, calling it “an exhilarating journey of travel, poetry, and discovery across five continents.”

Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun

By Faith Adiele

Faith Adiele chronicles her journey to Thailand to turn out to be the nation’s first Black Buddhist nun. Blending spirituality, coming of age and cultural reflection, the memoir explores race, religion, id and a seek for peace and function removed from residence.

I took Adiele’s “Rethinking Travel Writing” class final 12 months and instantly went again and scrubbed my manuscript afterward. We have a lot to be taught from her instructing, writing and the way in which she strikes by the world.

Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria

By Noo Saro-Wiwa

Returning to Nigeria, her father’s homeland, after rising up in England, Noo Saro-Wiwa travels throughout the nation whereas grappling with sophisticated emotions about nationality and id. Traversing the nation, she explores Nigerian Christianity, delves into the nation’s historical past of slavery, examines oil corruption, and ponders Nollywood. Saro-Wiwa’s love-hate relationship to Nigeria challenges simplistic concepts about residence and return.

After studying her work and listening to her communicate in Faith Adiele’s class final fall, I used to be struck by how fantastically she captures the reality and complexity of a spot.

The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World

By Jessica Nabongo

Jessica Nabongo paperwork her journey to turn out to be the primary Black lady to go to each nation on the earth on this one-of-a-kind travelogue. Alongside vibrant images and reflections on race, womanhood and freedom, she gives a portrait of curiosity, braveness and world connection.

I had the possibility to take a seat subsequent to Nabongo at an occasion at Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock residency in Senegal final fall and located her each bit as considerate and grounded as she is adventurous.

A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents

By Mary-Alice Daniel

Mary-Alice Daniel’s memoir strikes by the landscapes of her upbringing in Nigeria to England and finally the United States. Against the backdrop of a migratory youth, she reckons with race, faith, cultural clashes and being caught between identities, continents and cultures. Quietly lovely and deeply reflective, the guide taught me a lot about Nigeria and the emotional expertise of residing between worlds.

Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging

By Tara Roberts

Tara Roberts turns into an authorized scuba diver and joins a gaggle of Black divers looking for slave shipwrecks throughout a number of continents. Along the way in which, she displays on ancestry, the historical past of the transatlantic slave commerce and the emotional currents that proceed to attach Black folks throughout the diaspora. Roberts’ memoir is each tender and courageous.

Imagined Homecomings

Homegoing

By Yaa Gyasi

Spanning generations and continents, Homegoing follows the descendants of two Ghanaian sisters separated by slavery. Moving between West Africa and the United States, Yaa Gyasi explores historical past, migration and the centuries-long seek for id and residential.

This novel each deeply formed my considering round return and belonging and feels spiritually related to the questions I explored whereas standing on the Doors of No Return in Senegal and Ghana. It’s highly effective and certainly one of my favourite explorations of diasporic homecoming. 

Americanah

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah tells the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian lady who immigrates to the United States and later returns residence. Through love, motion throughout continents and cultural commentary, the novel explores race, id and the sophisticated means of changing into your self throughout borders. It stays certainly one of my favourite novels due to the precision and sweetness with which Adichie captures race, womanhood and Black id in America. It jogs my memory that when you cross cultures, you’ll by no means actually be the identical, and that’s okay. 

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I’m honored to share literary area with these fantastic girls. 

I started writing my memoir in 2014 for myself. I wished to doc what volunteering, backpacking and writing ‘Where I’m From’ poems with strangers throughout 15 international locations and 5 continents taught me about life, love, humanity and in the end myself.

In 2024, I returned to the manuscript I accomplished in 2017—as a result of whereas the Black journey motion that hardly existed after I set out in 2010 has grown into one thing very important and visual, a lot of that dialog has shifted to social media aesthetics and visuals. I wished so as to add a voice that goes deeper into the transformative energy of journey, and to share my story with the subsequent technology of girls not solely in exploring far-flung locations, however in exploring their internal landscapes too.

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