Reading Wayde Compton : Geohistorical (Re)Constructions of Black Vancouver

This book is a comprehensive analysis of the literary oeuvre of Wayde Compton, examining the interplay between modes of literary production, urban commemoration, the formation of Black racial identity on the margins of the diaspora, and coalitions of solidarity with other communities in Vancouver. Stemming from an interdisciplinary perspective that blends Spatial Literary Studies, Hip hop epistemology and the transmodern paradigm, this book shows a dynamic model of Black identity formation and belonging, the result of the remix of Afro-diasporic and transcultural elements, and the political commemoration of local Black spaces in an often-understudied node of the Black diaspora.

This book also explores Compton’s contribution to recent academic debates on the interaction between the commemoration of Black spaces and right to the city and the interaction with Indigenous calls for decolonisation of their ancestral lands.

The analysis of Compton’s work allows for deconstructing the binaries African/Canadian, Indigenous/settler, Hogan’s Alley/Vancouver and exposes the co-constitutive character of these elements.