“A refreshingly timely collection of essays that immediately reminds readers of the elastic resilience of the African spiritual heritage that sustained and continues to nourish not only the African descendants, but also others in the Americas. The spiritual tradition of Yemoja (Yemanja, Iemanya), does not only demonstrate the survival and pertinence of African spiritual values to the benefit of countless numbers of people in their daily lives for purposes of restoration to wholeness, but it also finds expression in literature and the arts to enhance the quality of human life. Indeed, time and distance have not been able to shrink this mighty African feminine divine!“

Kofi Asare Opoku, African University College of Communications, Accra, Ghana. Formerly Professor of Religious Studies, Lafayette College, Easton, PA. Author of West African Traditional Religion

This text is indeed a Yemonja Awakening! It is a much needed and unique contribution to decolonial thought in Africana Studies. Using a rich tapestry of experiences and knowledge in a stylistic mode that is readable, insightful and thoroughly engaging, it skillfully de-links from a colonial male-oriented gendering of African divinity. Re-linking to the endogenous and expansive female divine in Yemonja, the chapters in this text draw one into varied authentic and connected ways in which the resilience and power of the female river deity is manifested. A must read for all those concerned about decolonizing conceptions of African divinity.

Gerald M. Boodoo, Founding Director, Center for African Studies, Duquesne University

This book honors Yemonja, the preeminent goddess of arts, creativity, fertility, and productivity, the transcendent maternal figure who controls the sea, with magisterial power over the land. Yemonja herself gifted her expansive energies to the editors and contributors of this volume to see far and wide, brilliantly spiritualizing the essence of feminine divinity, effortlessly navigating the Atlantic world to rescue subdued voices and practices on femininity and godhood, covering considerable mileage in our understanding of Afro-Atlantic religion. Yemonja, I bow, I kneel, I prostrate. I do not call your name in vain!

Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin, USA

“Yemoja is arguably the most transformative and transformed Orisa of the Yoruba pantheon. Recovering the African Feminine Divine in Literature, the Arts, and Practice: Yemonja Awakening is a profound contribution to the growing understanding of Yemoja's role in the survivance and spiritual resistance of Black peoples. The contributors shed light on how Yemoja prevented the abysmal conditions of the Maafa from severing Black peoples' connection to the sacred female healing power of the sea. A must-read for both scholars and devotees!”

M. Ajisebo McElwaine Abimbola, Co-Founder, Ifá Heritage Institute