Exodus by Tolu Daniel

Exodus by Tolu Daniel

Blending memoir, cultural criticism, political witnessing, and lyrical reportage, this incisive collection of essays documents the emotional and psychological realities of contemporary African migration.

Exodus is a searching, intimate essay collection about memory, migration, grief, and the fragile idea of home. Moving between Abeokuta, Kansas, and St. Louis, Tolu Daniel maps the emotional terrain of a generation shaped by political unrest, displacement, and longing. These essays revisit childhood fables, family tragedies, nationalist dreams, the aftermath of the EndSARS protests, and the disorientations of diasporic life with lyrical precision and emotional candor. At once deeply personal and sharply observant, Exodus asks what becomes of those who leave home carrying entire countries inside them, and whether belonging is ever truly recoverable once exile begins.

Tolu Daniel is a Nigerian writer whose essays and short fiction have appeared in print and online publications. He was longlisted for the 2018 Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Daniel lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he is completing a PhD in comparative literature. Gerald Early is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in the African and African American Studies Department at Washington University in St. Louis, where he has taught since 1982. He was most recently the interim director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Equity. He is a noted essayist and American culture critic. His essay collections include Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture; The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture; This is Where I Came In: Essays on Black America in the 1960s; and, most recently, A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports.