Outriders Africa: Essays on Exploration and Return (HC) (2024)

It is Spring 2020, and 10 writers of African heritage, travelling in pairs, set out on journeys across Africa. It is a strange time to be travelling, and the shifting state of the world is reflected in temperature checks at borders, hand sanitiser outside churches, and truncated journeys.

Against this backdrop, their travels take them from the tourist beaches of Madagascar and Comoros to the Rastafarian town of Shashamane in Ethiopia, and from questions of renaming amongst the flora and fauna of Cape Town to learning to walk in circles and embrace sensuality in The Gambia.

Through essays, travel diaries, letters and poetry, Outriders Africa is an evocative and enthralling exploration of forgotten family histories, reckoning with grief (both personal and historical), and what it truly means to return.