A Map to the Door of No Return

Notes to Belonging

By: Dionne Brand, Saidiya Hartman - afterword

Narrated by: Dionne Brand, Saidiya Hartman

Now in its first American edition, Dionne Brand’s groundbreaking A Map to the Door of No Return has emerged as a modern classic, a highly influential exploration of "being" in the Black diaspora.

Since its first publication in 2001, in Canada, Dionne Brand’s groundbreaking exploration of being in the Black diaspora, A Map to the Door of No Return, has emerged as a modern classic. The door, in Brand’s iconic schema, represents the point of rupture where the ancestors of the Black diaspora departed one world for another: the place where all names were forgotten, and all beginnings recast. “This door,” writes Brand, “is not mere physicality. It is a spiritual location . . . Since leaving was never voluntary, return was, and still may be, an intention, however deeply buried. There is as it says no way in; no return.”

Through shards of history, memoir, lyrical investigation, and the unwritten experience of so many descendants of those who passed through the door, Brand constructs a map of this indelible region, culminating in an enduring expression, both definitive and seeking, of what it is to live, think, and create in the wake of colonization.

With a new preface by the author, and an afterword by Saidiya Hartman.

©2023 Dionne Brand. Afterword © 2023 by Saidiya Hartman. (P)2023 Penguin Random House Canada Limited. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“This book is a world, a triumph of art and thought, a compass for the ages.”—David Chariandy

“The depth of Brand’s love for her people is matched only by the honest luminosity with which she writes her account of our lives. This book’s profound understanding of the world that chattel slavery has made invites us to see this life alchemized into a more magnified vision of our being. It confirms Brand’s ceaseless foresight and the greatness of her gift.”—Canisia Lubrin

“The influence of A Map to the Door of No Return cannot be quantified. More than canonical, it has played a singular role in shaping the words, thinking, and craft of generations of Black writers across the diaspora, and will continue to do so for a long time to come.”—Robyn Maynard