Paper long abstract:

The Journey is integral to the African story. [mbe echipu… (and tortoise sets out…) begins an Igbo folksong] Memory and experience can be intensified by 'exile' There is a coming and a going at the root of life and literature, a borrowing and a lending that increases borrower and lender. In the ebb and flow of civilisations, cultures can keep the fire while others go to sleep. Diasporic writing unleavened by journeying and experience soon dries out its roots. The Diasporic Journey as a process becomes tragic for the hearth when it fails to go full circle.