New Book

MAMA AFRICA: REINVENTING BLACKNESS IN BAHIA

Patricia de Santana Pinho, Duke University Press

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I am pleased to announce the publication of Patricia de Santana

Pinho’s new book Mama Africa: Reinventing Blackness in Bahia

(Duke University Press). Often called the “most African” part of

Brazil, the northeastern state of Bahia has the country’s largest

Afro-descendant population and a black culture renowned for its

vibrancy. Combining insights from anthropology, sociology, and

cultural studies, Pinho considers how Afro-Bahian cultural

groups, known as blocos afro, conceive of Africanness, blackness,

and themselves in relation to both. Central to the book, and to

Bahian constructions of blackness, is what Pinho calls “the myth

of Mama Africa,” the idea that Africa exists as a nurturing

spirit inside every black person. Mama Africa is a translated,

updated, and expanded edition of an award-winning book published

in Brazil in 2004.

For more information, and to order the book directly from Duke

University Press, please visit

http://www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3?isbn=978-0-8223-4646-3

Amanda E. Sharp

Publicity and Marketing Assistant

Duke University Press

Box 90660

Durham, NC 27708

(919) 687-3650

(919) 688-4391 FAX

amanda.sharp@dukeupress.edu

905 W. Main Street, Suite 18B 

Durham, NC 27701 

www.dukeupress.edu