This volume considers the Arabic and African diasporas through the underexplored Afro-Hispanic, Luso-Africans, and Mahjari (South American and Mexican authors of Arab descent) experiences in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. Utilizing both established and emerging approaches, the authors explore the ways in which individual writers and artists negotiate the geographical, cultural, and historical parameters of their own diasporic trajectories influenced by their particular locations at home and elsewhere. At the same time, this volume sheds light on issues related to Spain, Portugal, and Latin American racial, ethnic, and sexual boundaries; the appeal of images of the Middle East and Africa in the contemporary marketplace; and the role of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American economic crunches in shaping attitudes towards immigration. This collection of thought-provoking chapters extends the concepts of diaspora and transnationalism, forcing the reader to reassess their present limitations as interpretive tools. In the process, Afro-Hispanic, Afro-Portuguese, and Mahjaris are rendered visible as national actors and transnational citizens.

Cristián H. Ricci is a professor of Iberian studies and North African studies at the University of California, Merced. His literary research interests and experience include the narrative of Spain, the literature of Morocco written in Western European languages (Castilian, Catalan, French, Dutch, English), and the literatures of Equatorial Guinea and Latin America from 1800 through the present. He is the author of El espacio urbano en la narrativa del Madrid de la Edad de Plata, 1900-1938 (2009), Literatura periférica en castellano y catalán: el caso marroquí (2010), ¡Hay moros en la costa! Literatura marroquí fronteriza en castellano y catalán (2014), and New Voices of Muslim North African Migrants in Europe (2019). He is the codirector of Transmodernity. Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World.