Taken from a poem by Niyi Osumdare, Atlantic Cross Currents: Transatlantiques' was the theme of the 1993 meeting of the African Literature Association held in Guadeloupe, suggesting the movement of people, languages, cultures and ideas. The papers included in this volume are divided into three clusters, the first focusing on forms of linguistic communication and literary genres, the second on the construction of gender, memory, history and revolt against patriarchy, and the third on political change and nation-building.'