While masculinity studies enjoys considerable growth in the West, there is very little analysis of African masculinities. This volume explores what it means for an African to be masculine and how male identity is shaped by cultural forces. The editors believe that to tackle the important questions in Africa--the many forms of violence (wars, genocides, familial violence and crime) and the AIDS pandemic--it is necessary to understand how a combination of a colonial past, patriarchal cultural structures and a variety of religious and knowledge systems creates masculine identities and sexualities. The work done in the book particularly bears in mind how vulnerability and marginalization produce complex forms of male identity. The book is interdisciplinary and is the first in-depth and comprehensive study of African men as a gendered category.

While masculinity studies enjoys considerable growth in the West, there is very little analysis of African masculinities. This volume explores what it means for an African to be masculine and how male identity is shaped by cultural forces. The editors believe that to tackle the important questions in Africa-the many forms of violence (wars, genocides, familial violence and crime) and the AIDS pandemic-it is necessary to understand how a combination of a colonial past, patriarchal cultural structures and a variety of religious and knowledge systems creates masculine identities and sexualities. The work done in the book particularly bears in mind how vulnerability and marginalization produce complex forms of male identity. The book is interdisciplinary and is the first in-depth and comprehensive study of African men as a gendered category.

The protagonist is Brendan Buchanan. He also goes by other names - Potter, Crawford, Block, Davis - in fact, over two hundred others. A member of a special-operations until so covert it may as well be run by ghosts, Buchanan is a master of impersonation, a specialist in assuming false identities. But now his unique gifts - and desperate pathology - threaten to destroy him. The beginning of his nightmare occurs in Cancun, Mexico, where Buchanan's latest alias is brutally unmasked. Racing through a torturous escape route, he is shocked to discover that his controllers will no longer give him a new identity. For the first time in eight years, he will have to be himself. But after spending so much time assuming different identities, he no longer knows who he is. Suddenly, he receives a mysterious postcard, a coded, unmistakable plea for help. Its source is Juana Mendez, a former partner who had posed as his wife six years earlier, countless missions ago. In his quest for Juana, Buchanan is thrust into a stark wilderness of mirrors and faced with a harrowing conspiracy. Yet he finds the unreadable maze of his own mind as dangerous as the harsh, chilling world that assails him from without. His partner in the search is Holly McCoy, a reporter whose beauty is matched only by her determination to penetrate Buchanan's multilayered psychological armor and write her subject's real story. Seeking one woman, while inexorably drawn to another, Buchanan relentlessly follows a seductive but deadly trail from Key West to New Orleans, from San Antonio to Mexico City. Ultimately, he will find the truth about Juana, and even the truth about himself - if he can survive.