A Map to the Door of No Return

Now in its first American edition, Dionne Brand's groundbreaking A Map to the Door of No Return has emerged as a modern classic, a highly influential exploration of 'being' in the Black diaspora. With a new preface by the author, and an afterword by Saidiya Hartman.

Since its first publication in 2001, in Canada, Dionne Brand's groundbreaking exploration of being in the Black diaspora, A Map to the Door of No Return, has emerged as a modern classic. The door, in Brand's iconic schema, represents the point of rupture where the ancestors of the Black diaspora departed one world for another: the place where all names were forgotten, and all beginnings recast. "This door," writes Brand, "is not mere physicality. It is a spiritual location . . . Since leaving was never voluntary, return was, and still may be, an intention, however deeply buried. There is as it says no way in; no return."

Through shards of history, memoir, lyrical investigation, and the unwritten experience of so many descendants of those who passed through the door, Brand constructs a map of this indelible region, culminating in an enduring expression, both definitive and seeking, of what it is to live, think, and create in the wake of colonization.

Dionne Brand's literary credentials are legion. Her novel, Theory, won the 2019 OCM BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature, and was a Globe and Mail Best Book. Her poetry collection, The Blue Clerk, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won the Trillium Book Prize. Her collection Ossuaries won the Griffin Poetry Prize, and other collections have won the Governor General's Literary Award, the Trillium Book Award and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. In 2017, she was named to the Order of Canada. Brand is a Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. She lives in Toronto.

• Publisher: ‎Picador USA (October 01, 2024)
• Language: ‎English
• Paperback: ‎256 pages
• ISBN-13: ‎9781250348845
• Item Weight: ‎16 ounces
• Dimensions: ‎5.38 X 8.25 X 1.0 inches
• BISAC Categories: Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - African American & Black Women Personal Memoirs Caribbean & West Indies - General Subjects & Themes - Culture, Race & Ethnicity