Tropes of Travel in Bernardine Evaristo’s Novels

This paper is informed by an interpretative framework in which the theoretical paradigms of Cultural, Gender, (Post-)colonial and Tourism studies are interwoven. It is claimed that fostering a specific kind of literary and cultural tourism, centred on (post-)colonial authors’ works, might emerge as a political practice able to reshape the self-fashioning of Western European cultural heritage in non-essentialized terms. Consequently, this would also help promote cross-cultural exchanges. In this respect, Lara (1997), The Emperor’s Babe (2001) and Soul Tourists (2005), the first three novels by the London-born Anglo-Nigerian writer Bernardine Evaristo, appear to be extremely relevant literary instances.