This open access book contributes to the mobility humanities from the perspective of postcolonial literary mobilities and aims at enhancing dialogue between mobilities research and postcolonial literary studies. The study produces new perspectives on Afroeuropean mobilities in Francophone African and Afrodiasporic literatures from the mid-twentieth century to the present, covering a wide set of texts across literary genres. Focusing on representations of educational travel, tourism, diasporic returns, work-related mobilities, and clandestine migratory journeys, Toivanen examines portrayals of mobility practices and modes of transport to map out the meanings of embodied (im)mobilities in the Afroeuropean context. In addition to thematic analysis, the volume also explores the manifestations of mobility in literary form.

Anna-Leena Toivanen is an Academy Research Fellow at the University of Eastern Finland. She is the author of Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures (2021) and co-editor of Urban Mobilities in Literature and Art Activism (2024).