Through analyses of autobiographical texts from the Latin American and Caribbean diaspora, this book explores how colonial power structures shape the body. Using a philosophical approach of decolonial phenomenology, Hannes Koberg traces the literary endeavors of diasporic life writers to bring to light the sensory, affective, and emotive dimension of coloniality, which he defines as “embodied coloniality.” The texts include Zami (1982) by Black Caribbean-American writer Audre Lorde, Autobiography of My Hungers (2013) by Chicano writer Rigoberto González, and Body Toxic (2002) by Susanne Antonetta, all of which were published after the end of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. In their memoirs, Lorde, González, and Antonetta not only draw attention to the wounds inflicted by colonization (Mignolo), but thThrough analyses of autobiographical texts from the Latin Amey also reconfigure embodied coloniality into powerful visions of decolonial re-existence.

Hannes Koberg is a cultural studies scholar specializing in critical phenomenology and life writing studies. From 2019 to 2025, he was a research assistant and lecturer in American studies at Ruhr-University Bochum.