Austin Clarke: 'Membering home and the black Altantic

Abstract

In his memoir ‘Membering (2015), Clarke employs associative memorial practices as recuperative textual strategies to make himself a(t) home in Toronto and a black Atlantic-cum-Mediterranean geography and history marked by the afterlife of slavery. “ ‘Membering ” fragmented histories and fusing personal experience with diasporic dispersals, Clarke’s interventionist critical memory imaginatively lays claim to the wealth reaped from diasporic dispossessions, transforming victimization into rightful ownership and a sense of belonging.