BOOK REVIEWS


 In such a multi-layered anthology, De Costa-Willis found a practical way
to set apart each of these works and the pieces about them. The pages of
this volume are bordered on the top and the bottom in ragged gray, a visual
reminder that the words they contain will probably last as long as the
manuscripts found on parchments in the past, and the translations provide
an excellent introduction, although one might quibble with two or three of
them.
 The subtitle of the book merits clarification. As she notes in the Preface,
the editor adapts a term coined by Joanne M. Braxton and Andr6 Nicola
McLaughlin, "Afra-American," (xii) in this selection of writings by Spanish-
speaking women authors. The resulting term, "Afra-Hispanic," draws
attention to the gendered nature of the Spanish language as well as to the
increasing visibility of writing by women in an Afro-Hispanic tradition just
coming into its own (xii). This has not been an easy task. In fact, one of
them, Uruguayan Virginia Brindis de Salas, has been accused of not actually
writing "the poetry that has been attributed to her," an example of accusations
De Costa-Willis says abound in the history of Black women's literature (3).
 In Daughters of the Diaspora, the editor carries out precisely what she
mentions in her Introduction: "...the Afra-Hispanic writer needs more than a
room of her own and money to support herself; she also need support from
the literary establishment" (xviii). Politics, lost manuscripts, out-of-print
books, limited distribution, and the lack of reviews are just some of the
problems these authors face. Nevertheless, their commitment to social and
political change in their countries was and is steadfast. From the poem "To
Julia de Burgos," with its rejection of passivity in "probably the first feminist
manifesto written in Spanish by a woman of African descent" (xxv), their
revisionism encompasses life-givers and culture bearers of African descent
like Cuban Cristina Ayala (1856-?), the first poet to break the silence about
race (xxx). Offering her support through this anthology, De Costa-Willis
ranges over a great distance: from the Caribbean to the Central America of
colonial Blacks and immigrant West Indians, to South America, where the
diaspora seems to "have disappeared or been absorbed by the mestizo
population" (xxxv), to North America and the ambivalent feelings writers
express, and even to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea in Africa. As she
points out, Afra-Hispanic women write about many diasporas yet "remind
readers of a shared myth of origin and a shared history and culture" (xl).
Migration and exile, whether in their own lives or in those of their ancestors,
is a common thread which, however, forces them to "re-examine identities,
revision their patria, and chart radically different routes to the page" (xl).
 The majority of these writers are still alive. They are presented in
chronological order, and come from the following countries: Uruguay (Virgi-
nia Brindis de Salas, Beatriz Santos, Cristina Cabral, also from the United
States); Puerto Rico (Carmen Col6n Pellot, Julia de Burgos, Mayra Santos);
the Dominican Republic (Aida Cartagena Portalatin, Sherazada "Chiqui"