As the original locus of the human race, Africa is ancient, yet, being under colonial control, it is also infantile. A kind of old fetus always waiting to be born but confounding all midwives.
-- Toni Morrison (The Foreigner's Home)

Importance: Morrison's sarcastic comment about Africa demonstrates her frustration with the way in which Africa has historically and in literature been portrayed by Eurocentric perspectives and people. In this chapter, she struggles to come to terms with the injustice of such a portrayal of a continent that is vast, diverse, and contains beautiful cultures, but she finds some solace in knowing that more African voices are being heard now in literature especially. She cites Camara Laye's "Le Regard du Roi" as a novel which upends the incorrect and colonialist description of Africa and creates a new narrative, one where the white wanderer in Africa is made to feel foreign, and is stripped of his power to feel...