Íjè: An Immigrant’s Voyage into Prince Edward Island Life takes its meaning from the Igbo word for journey, and spotlights the narratives of immigrants to Prince Edward Island, shining light on their individual experiences. This collection of personal reflections, interviews, photo essays, and visual works of art includes themes of belonging, imposed and realized identities, cultural traditions, culinary symbols, living the contradictions of social norms. From chefs to hairdressers, academics to entrepreneurs, Íjè encompasses the resilience of a people inspired to innovate their own community-driven solutions.
“Immigration is so much more than simply moving to a new place. Íjè is a brilliant anthology that captures stories rarely considered from the citizen’s perspective yet experienced so rawly and felt so deeply from the immigrant’s perspective. Íjè is the book that PEI needs in this very moment.”
Tamara Steele, Director of the Black Cultural Society of PEI
“Elizabeth Iwunwa is the right-on-time curator of this righteous assembly of views, interviews, art, and photos, all depicting the Come-From-Far-Away Islanders who have found anchorage in the harbour of Confederation and a new homeland on soil as red and promising as the dawn. Charming and charismatic, personable and penetrating, Iwunwa maps a community of Islanders whose odysseys have taught them that all of Earth is an island, one where we all must find refuge, amid the endless, bone-chilling ocean of space.”
George Elliott Clarke, Author of Where Beauty Survived: An Africadian Memoir (Knopf Canada)
Íjè
ISBN: 9781778124563
$26.95 CAD | Paperback / softback
Height: 9.5"
Width: 6.75"
Pages: 130
Publication Date: February 21, 2023
Elizabeth Iwunwa was born in 1997 in Lagos, Nigeria and lives in Charlottetown, PEI. After completing her primary and secondary education in her home country, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Business Administration in Global Leadership from the University of Prince Edward Island. Both a fiction and nonfiction writer, her works have been featured in PEI’s The Guardian, on CBC, and on her blog at LisaIwunwa.co. Iwunwa is interested in the intersection of culture, politics, and history on the lives and stories of everyday people, and Íjè is her first full length editorial publication.
Essays and Contributors
- The Weight of Love | Elizabeth Iwunwa
- Stomach Infrastructure | Tolulope Adesoye
- A Celebration of Our Inner Light | Nindiya Sharma
- A Taste of Home | Elizabeth Iwunwa
- Akos | Chester Hewlett
- Our Daily Bread | Rachael Sonola
- My Immigration Story | Debbie Langston
- Black Lives Matter: Resistance in Black and White | Oniel Kuku & Ugochukwu Nwafor
- Silence is My Voice | Charles Ruth
- Fleeing Home, Finding Refuge | Elizabeth Iwunwa
- Good Hair | Malak Usman
- The Power of Community | Mary-Ann Lamai
- The Bridge from One Present to Another | John Shabaan
- Ancestors | Martins Madumere
- Chicken Paprikash | Chef Ilona Daniel
- Home and Abroad: Contradictory Social Locations | Dr. Charles Adeyanju
- Food: My Tether to Home | Via Reyes
- Children of the Diaspora | Shaka Joshua Tarichia
- News from Mali | Mamadou Sanogo
- Tomorrow Comes Today | Daniel Ohaegbu & Jonah Chininga
“Immigration is so much more than simply moving to a new place. Íjè is a brilliant anthology that captures stories rarely considered from the citizen’s perspective yet experienced so rawly and felt so deeply from the immigrant’s perspective. Íjè is the book that PEI needs in this very moment.”
Tamara Steele, Director of the Black Cultural Society of PEI
“Elizabeth Iwunwa is the right-on-time curator of this righteous assembly of views, interviews, art, and photos, all depicting the Come-From-Far-Away Islanders who have found anchorage in the harbour of Confederation and a new homeland on soil as red and promising as the dawn. Charming and charismatic, personable and penetrating, Iwunwa maps a community of Islanders whose odysseys have taught them that all of Earth is an island, one where we all must find refuge, amid the endless, bone-chilling ocean of space.”
George Elliott Clarke, Author of Where Beauty Survived: An Africadian Memoir (Knopf Canada)
Robin Gessy Gislain Shumbusho is a photographer, aspiring filmmaker, and currently the Art Director at ZeroResistance Studios, a multi-disciplinary creative studio where he has directed multiple visual campaigns and exhibitions to success. Shumbusho is fascinated by the beauty of people who look like him, people with a creative drive, and he looks to create a platform that binds purpose, God, and the beauty among people by telling stories through stills and motion direction.