A Map to the Door of No Return

Notes to Belonging

De: Dionne Brand, Saidiya Hartman

Narrado por: Dionne Brand, Saidiya Hartman

A Map to the Door of No Return is a timely book that explores the relevance and nature of identity and belonging in a culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. It is an insightful, sensitive and poetic book of discovery.

Drawing on cartography, travels, narratives of childhood in the Caribbean, journeys across the Canadian landscape, African ancestry, histories, politics, philosophies and literature, Dionne Brand sketches the shifting borders of home and nation, the connection to place in Canada and the world beyond.

The title, A Map to the Door of No Return, refers to both a place in imagination and a point in history—the Middle Passage. The quest for identity and place has profound meaning and resonance in an age of heterogenous identities.

In this exquisitely written and thought-provoking new work, Dionne Brand creates a map of her own art.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“This book is a world, a triumph of art and thought, a compass for the ages.” —David Chariandy

“The depth of Brand’s love for her people is matched only by the honest luminosity with which she writes her account of our lives. This book’s profound understanding of the world that chattel slavery has made invites us to see this life alchemized into a more magnified vision of our being. It confirms Brand’s ceaseless foresight and the greatness of her gift.” —Canisia Lubrin

“The influence of A Map to the Door of No Return cannot be quantified. More than canonical, it has played a singular role in shaping the words, thinking, and craft of generations of Black writers across the diaspora, and will continue to do so for a long time to come.” —Robyn Maynard

"Open it anywhere and start reading and it makes sense. . . . her true home is not Africa, the Caribbean or Canada, but poetry." —Ottawa Citizen

"Moving and evocative. . . . Brand’s examination of her own personal odyssey is fascinating." —The Edmonton Journal

"Brand's is a voice both brave and beautiful." —NOW

"Dionne Brand—exults in the power of language and deploys it to lure us from harsh reality to metaphysical heights—[her] prose, so close to poetry, [is] almost musical." —National Post

"Brand has two gifts that are incendiary in combination: a concise and intelligent grasp of the subtleties of emotion and an apparently effortless facility with the language. The result is an extraordinary ability to capture the flicker of experience." —The Globe and Mail

"Brand's prose pays sharp attention to detail, with sensual, often playful descriptions. She injects a rhythm into her language and creates characters who burst with colour. This is a delicately structured, beautifully written novel, infused with rare emotional clarity." —The Independent, UK