"For years I've often puzzled over my yellow clothbound copy of Captain Harry Dean's singular autobiography The Pedro Gorino. That is because relatively little has been known about the author of this strange, surprising, and occasionally apocryphal romance of sail and of globe-spanning Pan-Africanism in the age of the New Imperialism. How could a narrative with so much evident interest to students of the Black Atlantic attract such scarce attention for nearly a century? At last, Nadia Nurhussein has expertly and generously re-edited Dean's episodes, contextualizing The Pedro Gorino's literary and historical imagination and amassing the scarce facts available beyond Dean's own accounts. Dean's place is restored in a literary history that spans from Martin Delany and Victor Hugo to Joseph Conrad and Alain Locke. This edition is a generous gift to readers of this improbable book." -- Harris Feinsod, Johns Hopkins University

"This critical edition of Harry Dean's Pedro Gorino brings Dean and Black nautical history to the fore. Born of a time in which sailing and ships were still so central to global power, the book has always offered insight into key ways in which African Americans understood the significance of maritime life. Nurhussein re-presents Dean's memoir with a careful curation of vital primary-source documents to help us situate the book and Dean in that time. At a moment when Black Studies is increasingly being called to understand itself on more global terms, Nurhussein's efforts are urgently necessary, profound, and timely." -- Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class, University of Johannesburg