In 1996 Manthia Diawara returned to Guinea, thirty-two years after he and his family were expelled from the newly liberated country. Expecting to be welcomed as an insider, Diawara was shocked to discover that he was not. He suggests solutions to overcome the stultifying legacy of colonialism and age-old social practices, looking to the culture of the diaspora as well as to traditional music and literature -- to James Brown, Miles Davis, and Salif Keita, to Richard Wright, Spike Lee, and the ancient epics of the griots.