It is Spring 2020, and 10 writers of African heritage, travelling in pairs, set out on journeys across Africa. It is a strange time to be travelling, and the shifting state of the world is reflected in temperature checks at borders, hand sanitiser outside churches, and truncated journeys.

Against this backdrop, their travels take them from the tourist beaches of Madagascar and Comoros to the Rastafarian town of Shashamane in Ethiopia, and from questions of renaming amongst the flora and fauna of Cape Town to learning to walk in circles and embrace sensuality in The Gambia.

Through essays, travel diaries, letters and poetry, Outriders Africa is an evocative and enthralling exploration of forgotten family histories, reckoning with grief (both personal and historical), and what it truly means to return.

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf is the co-founder and publishing director of one of Africa's leading publishing houses, Cassava Republic Press. She has worked as a gender and research consultant in the public, private and development sectors for the BBC, UniFem, ActionAid, eShekels, Central Bank of Nigeria, the European Union and others. She has a Ph.D in Women and Gender Studies from the University of Warwick. She has published many academic papers and regularly presents papers at academic conferences. She sits on the editorial board of a number of influential journals. Bibi is also a Yale World Fellow, a Desmond Tutu Fellow and a Frankfurt Book Fair Fellow. The Chair of The Initiative for Equal Rights, the largest organisation in West Africa devoted to LGBT advocacy.