“Informative, heartfelt . . . The rigor of Raboteau’s journalistic work and her candid self-assessment . . . is thoughtful, well-researched, and deeply fascinating.” —Kim McLarin, The Washington Post

“An instructive read . . . ‘You don’t stomp on any permanent ground if you’re between black and white,’ Rita Marley, Bob Marley’s widow, tells [Raboteau] in Ghana. ‘You don’t have no grounds as a half-caste.’ But there is a definite arc to Raboteau’s book, and in her way, she proves Rita Marley wrong. She finds the ground she wants to make her own, and she sinks her roots there.” —Laura Collins-Hughes, The Boston Globe

“[Raboteau’s] detailed depictions flash with insight and beauty. A section on slave tourism in Ghana is frankly fascinating, as are the sections on visiting Birmingham, Ala., and Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.” —Lizzie Skurnick, Los Angeles Times

“Extraordinary . . . Beautifully written.” —Rebecca Carroll, Good.com

“Vivid . . . Ambitious . . . Frank and expansive.” —Lynell George, Chicago Tribune

“An exceptionally beautiful and well researched book about a search for the kind of home for which there is no straight route, the kind of home in which the journey itself is as revelatory as the destination. Go on this timely and poignant journey with Emily Raboteau and you will never think of home in the same way again.” —Edwidge Danticat

“I burned through this eye-opening book, utterly engaged with Raboteau’s search—which is, after all, everyone’s search. Raboteau presents a self full of contradictions, smoldering energy, and the willingness to lay it all bare. Searching for Zion is a glorious meditation on what it is to be alive.” —Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

“Luminous . . . An investigative odyssey . . . With masterful prose and insights bursting from every page.” —Judith Basya, Heeb

“No quest for home is ever limited to a simple place, and [Raboteau] evokes that reality beautifully. . . . A fresh perspective [on the] elusive concept of home.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Profound and accessible . . . Her earnest, interior study is well worth the journey.” —Publishers Weekly

“Part political statement, part memoir, this intense personal account roots the mythic perilous journey in [Raboteau’s] search for home. . . . Candid, contemporary . . . Never self-important, this is sure to inspire [a] debate about the search for meaning, whether it concerns ‘the din of patriotism’ or the lack of closure.” —Hazel Rochman, Booklist

“Intelligent and illuminating.” —Sharon Chisvin, Winnipeg Free Press

Praise for The Professor’s Daughter:

“A bolt of energy . . . Fearless and lyrically inventive, Raboteau is a writer to watch.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Engaging . . . Takes up the fundamental American obsession with racial categorization and acknowledges the claims that the history of such categorization makes on the individual.” —James Smethurst, Chicago Tribune

“[Raboteau’s] prose is vibrant with life. . . . Her timing is excellent, her humor is wry, her voice is on point, and her eye works with laser-like precision. [Her] sensitivity to life and to people is nothing short of astounding.” —Francesca Wodtke, San Francisco Chronicle

“I much admire [her] prose, the fierce intelligence, the way she looks race straight in the eye and yet creates characters that are all fully human.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Raboteau possesses what is rare in this age, an adventurer’s spirit. She does not seek a thrill, speed, the buzz of fear. She seeks a home for her own expansive spirit, to know more and to be comfortable with knowing less.” —Percival Everett

4. Raboteau occasionally references The Wizard of Oz. How is her journey like Dorothy’s? Would you describe her as na’ve?

5. Zion is usually discussed as a homeland of the Jewish Diaspora. Raboteau discusses it instead as a metaphor for liberation in the African diaspora and, beyond that, as a feeling of kinship and belonging at home. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Raboteau revealed that her personal Zion is the condition of travel itself, because she feels most free when she’s on the road. What is your personal Zion?

6. Raboteau’s expectations are defied at several places in the book, forcing her to shift her attention. For example, she goes to Jamaica intending to learn about the Rastafarian faith but winds up focusing on gay rights instead. In Ghana she’s disturbed to discover facts about slavery, past and present. Where else is she surprised or disturbed by her discoveries?

7. Raboteau admires Kati Torda’s craft of stringing beads together “by listening,” and tells us ‘she was exactly the kind of artist I wished to be.” How has Raboteau used the same technique to craft this book? In other words, who would you say are the “beads’ she listens to in the “necklace” of her own project, and what does she hear?

8. Many of the seekers Raboteau interviews–such as Mary Ellen and John Ray in Ghana, Tezeta in Israel, and Brother Bryan in Ethiopia–seem bitter with the places they’ve emigrated. Others, like Rita Marley, Cousin Tracy, and Ras Hailu (the Banana-Man), seem more positive. What do you believe accounts for the difference in their outlooks?

9. Victor, the author’s eventual husband, suggests that her quest is really an elaborate search for her black father. Do you agree with him, or do you think he’s being reductive? Why?

10. The unprosecuted murder of the author’s grandfather is a touchstone in the book, referred to again and again as a source of disenchantment with America. At one point, Raboteau’s Aunt Alise reveals, “I knew him. He wasn’t a saint. He was just a man.” The same might be said of other literal and metaphorical father figures in the book, including national fathers Haile Selassie, Kwame Nkrumah, and, it is implied, Barack Obama. In your opinion, what are the dangers of expecting perfection or sainthood from our fathers? What are the consequences of not demanding more of them?

11. In the final chapter, newly pregnant and en route to New Orleans with her father, Raboteau writes, “I felt now what I’d known from the beginning. Zion is within. I understood that I would forget this fact, and, as with love, or faith, have to learn it again.” Earlier on, in Jamaica, she came to an understanding that “at its root my quest was about faith, not identity.” What kind of faith do you imagine she is referring to in these two passages?

12. In Ghana, master beader Kati Torda tells Emily that when a person stops swimming against the current, the water can take her to fascinating places. Where does the author wind up when she stops swimming against the current and finally returns home from her travels?

13. At the end of the book, the author tells us she doesn’t believe in fairy-tale endings and is resistant to conclude the book with her wedding or the birth of her son. Instead she chooses to finish in a more ambivalent place–”on the road.” How has Raboteau’s perception of Zion transformed, and how has her character changed by the book’s end? Do you feel she will spend the rest of her life seeking home?