Commerce with the Universe: Africa, India, and the Afrasian Imagination

Analyzing the life narratives and literary texts of South Asians writing in and about East Africa, Gaurav Desai builds a compelling alternative history of Africa's experience with slavery, migration, colonialism, nationalism, and globalization. Desai draws on Afrasian texts that are literary and nonfictional, political and private, to broaden the scope of African and South Asian scholarship and inspire a more nuanced understanding of the Indian Ocean's fertile routes of exchange. Traveling from the twelfth century to today, he concludes with a discussion of contemporary Asian populations in East Africa and their struggle to decide how best to participate in the political and cultural life of their postcolonial nations.

Gaurav Desai builds a new history of Africa’s encounter with slavery, colonialism, migration, nationalism, development, and globalization.