Exploring postapocalypticism in the Black literary and cultural tradition, this book
extends the scholarly conversation on Afro-futurist canon formation through an
examination of futuristic imaginaries in representative twentieth and twenty-first
century works of literature and expressive culture by Black women in an African
diasporic setting.

The author demonstrates the implications of Afro-futurist literary criticism for Black
Atlantic literary and critical theory, investigating issues of hybridity, transcending
boundaries, temporality and historical recuperation.

Covering writers including Octavia Butler, Edwidge Danticat, Nalo Hopkinson, Toni
Morrison, Jesmyn Ward and Beyoncé, this book examines the ways Black women
artists attempt to recover a raced and gendered heritage, and how they explore an
evolving social order that is both connected to and distinct from the past.