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This article explores the relationship between Africa and the United States, and how it has been changing because of the socalled “new African diaspora” in the US. Whereas the historical transatlantic diaspora was marked by slavery, the recent migration from Africa at the beginning of the 2000s triggers new reflections, especially in relation to how blackness is perceived and represented in the United States. In particular, this essay considers the literary production of the new black diasporic writers such as Chris Abani, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Edi Edugyan, and others, and how their works highlight a double movement with respect to the US African American literary tradition: a desire of closeness and inclusion, and of explicit difference, often due to a different understanding of race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]