Achebe, Chinua. No Longer At Ease. New York: Anchor Books, 1960.

“Four years in England had filled Obi with a longing to be back in Umuofia. This feeling was sometimes so strong that he found himself Ashamed of studying English for his degree.” (p. 57)

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. New York, Anchor Books. 2006.

“The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majorityof people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world;rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.”  (Chapter 5, p. 129)

Correal, Tobe Melora. Finding Soul on the Path of Orisa. A West African SpiritualTradition. Berkeley, CA: The Crossing Press, 2003.

“Just as we each walk with a piece of our ancestors’ pain, we also carry some of their blessings and magic.” (p. 111)

Deren, Maya. Divine Horsemen, The Living Gods of Haiti. Foreward by Joseph Campbell. New York: McPherson & company, 2001.

“Myth is the twilight speech of an old man to a boy.” (p. 21)

Drewel, Henry John and Thompson, Margaret.Gelede, Art and Female Power Among the Yoruba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.

“Evidence of the otherworldliness of Yoruba spectacle, whether it is a masquerade display, a festival for the gods, or a narrative performance,is to be found in its clearly demarcated openings and closings, which bring it into the world and return it or “carry it away” again, i.e., back to the underworld (orun).” (p. 2)

Drewel, Henry John. Mami Wata. Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diaspora. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2008.

“The earliest images of African water deities may be paintings on rock estimated to have been created nearly twenty-eight thousand years ago.” (p. 28)

Falola, Toyin and Heaton, Matthew M. A History of Nigeria. Cambridge University Press 2009.

“The boundaries of present-day Nigeria were created by the British colonial administration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.” (Chapter 1, p. 17)

Galembo, Phillis.Divine Inspiration, From Benin to Bahia. Brooklyn, New York: Athelia Henrietta Press, 1993.

“We could visit many altars in the black Atlantic world, for they are Literally everywhere – beside a cash register on Thirty-sixth Street in Manhattan; on the beach of Copacabana on New Year’s Eve; on a bank of the Osun River in Nigeria; under a Ceiba tree one block from Revolution Plaza in Havana.” (Divine Countenance, Art and Altars of the Black Atlantic World, p. 15)

Hunter-Hindrew, Vivian, Editor. (Mama Zogbe, Chief Hounon-Amengansie).Mami Wata, Africa’s Ancient Godddess Unveiled, Reclaiming the Ancient Mami Wata Voudoun History and Heritage of the Diaspora Volume 1. Martinez, Ga: Mami Wata Healer society of North America, Inc., 2007.

“In order to understand Mami Wata, it is necessary to travel to the original ancestral home where civilization for the clans of the Mami Wata Vodoun first began, that being in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.” (Part One, Mami Wata in the Ancient World, p. 42)

Maier, Karl. This House Has Fallen, Nigeria in Crisis. Boulder, Colo.:Westview Press, 2000.

“Nearly half of Nigeria’s two million barrels a day in oil production was exported to the insatiable U.S. market.” (Chapter 3, p. 42)

Phillips, Ruth B. Representing Women, Sande Masquerades of the Mende of Sierra Leone. Los Angeles UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995.

“The Mende, like most African peoples, do not have a separate word mask, for to distinguish the costume from the human being who wears it, or the headpiece from the rest of the costume, would contradict the notion that a masked figure is an ngafa (pl. ngafeisia), a spirit.” (The concept of Hale, p. 53)

Rush, Dana. Vodun in Coastal Benin, Unfinished, Open-ended, Global. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2013.

“The Vodun religious system is best understood as a network that is open-ended and in incorporative, and thus ‘unfinished.’” (Understanding Vodun, p. 4)

Soyinka, Wole. A Shuttle in the Crypt. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972.

“Roots, be an anchor at my keel
Shore my limbs against the wayward gale” (O’Roots!, p.1)

Saro–Wiwa, Ken. A Month and A Day & Letters.Banbury, United Kingdom: Clark Publishing Ltd., 2005.

“It is sickening that a company with such resources, that is a ‘win-win’situation in Nigeria – an organization that has earned billions from our land – remains unwilling to take responsibility for its actions and is trying to portray itself an innocent bystander and even victim of unscrupulous, black Africans. Poor little rich Shell!” (A Letter to My Father, p. 219)