Embracing the Other: Representations of Africa and Africans in Joan Baxter’s "Strangers Are Like Children"
Embracing the Other: Representations of Africa and Africans in Joan Baxter’s "Strangers Are Like Children"

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines representations of Africa and Africans in Joan Baxter’s short story collection "Strangers Are Like Children". Baxter’s short stories are about Africa, not of it. Baxter’s keen personal interest coupled with her work as a journalist prompted her to investigate and write about Africa that surrounds her. As a result, Joan Baxter succeeds in presenting African and expatriate characters who come off the page as vibrant, believable individuals living in an equally vibrant and believable place. Her first short story collection, "Strangers Are Like Children: Stories of Africa" (1996) consists of fifteen stories which wrestle with the prickly issues of sexism, political embroilment, juju and supernatural beliefs, and other pressing West African considerations. Baxter sees the failings of white culture as surely as she detects flaws in West African customs. She writes as an involved member of her West African community, not set apart from it. The commitment she shows for the causes of these West African people, especially of West African women, is commendable in its readjustment of old paradigms. Baxter does not simply demonize African Others, nor keep herself distant from them. Baxter, through her short stories, has come to understand herself better through the African Other.

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