Abstract
In a email exchange, acclaimed novelist and scholar Jeffrey Renard Allen professed his concerns the inconsistencies inherent in the word “AfroSurrealism.” Allen, who has been writing and studying fantastic texts for several decades, argues the term “AfroSurrealism” bears the weight of Surrealism and, subsequently, cannot be so easily separated from Surrealism’s original meaning. Allen’s thought-provoking questions pose interesting problems, especially if one views AfroSurrealism as a subset of Surrealism. AfroSurrealism makes the causes for the surreal experience unclear; in the narrative, a strange or nightmarish experience could be explained as the result of trauma, the supernatural, or an unjust society. For instance, AfroSurrealism retains Surrealism’s interest in the mind and in non-rational systems of knowledge. And, as with all forms of Surrealism, AfroSurrealism is anti-capitalist, and also, strongly anti-authoritarian. The AfroSurreal text is concerned with liberty.