SOURCE: Rowell, Charles H. Introduction to Ancestral House: The Black Short Story in the Americas and Europe, edited by Charles H. Rowell, pp. xv-xxviii. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995.

In the following introduction, excerpted from a short story anthology by writers of African descent, Rowell reflects on the difficulty in choosing a title for this collection, noting that finding common ground across the numerous authors featured, as well as attempting to define the notion of the African diaspora in a way that would reflect the many nationalities represented in this collection, were tasks he did not anticipate until he began work on the project.

Naming or creating titles has never been—and I say so politely—a problem for me. In fact, I have always considered the process fun, a delightful self-test of poetic skills. But giving this anthology a title proved for me to be a very serious...