History from literature
One writer in particular catches one's attention in this context. Caryl Phillips, born in St Kitts, the smallest of the Caribbean states, brought up in Leeds and now based in New York, has written extensively on the subject of the trade itself and the ensuing African diaspora. His main focus is the plural identity of the immigrant and the refugee in the fluid modern world. In his many articles and essays as well as in his novels, travelling and shifting "homes" form a necessary foundation for defining personal identity. This cannot be done without historical insight. The knowledge and understanding of history is thus a main issue on this author's agenda but processed, as it were, through literature.

The Atlantic heritage
Phillips himself insists on his Atlantic heritage. Once he was asked by his lawyer how to dispose of his body when he died. Though caught unprepared, Phillips was able to answer without hesitation. "I wish my ashes to be scattered in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean at a point equidistant between Britain, Africa and North America." This crossroads is what he has come to refer to as his Atlantic home.
In order to make more young people fully understand the failure and guilt at the core of turning human beings into goods, Phillips, who teaches a course at Yale about the literature of the middle passage, each year takes his students to Ghana to visit the slave forts and Accra. His point is that only by being in these places yourself does the understanding of the corruption of racial relations become emotionally real. We cannot all bring our students to Elmina Castle - "... probably the most beautiful building that I have ever seen ... and a place of unspeakable misery and cruelty" - but we can profit hugely from reading Caryl Phillips' own response to this experience.

Writing and TST
Both quotations above derive from the essay The High Anxiety of Belonging, published in the collection, A New World Order from 2001, which is highly recommendable both in its own value and as a source of teaching material.
Other books by Phillips that can either just fundamentally inspire the TST network teachers' work or be directly involved in the students' SRP (Specialized Study Project) or ordinary classroom teaching are:
Cambridge ( 1991), a novel set in the nineteenth century about a young British woman who visits her father's West Indian plantation and only gradually discovers the complexity and inhumanity at work on the estate.
The Atlantic Sound (2000), a non-fiction book which, however, reads as a page-turning and vivid personal history. The brilliant main sections deal with Liverpool, Ghana and Charleston, but in addition we get an interesting minor section reporting the author's voyage to Europe on a banana-boat, the middle passage backwards and upside-down.

Another main work, and probably Phillips' masterpiece, is the composite novel Crossing the River from 1994. Here we are presented with aspects of the African diaspora covering two centuries. Inaugurated by a lament from Africa itself/the eternal ancestor, the book gives voice to first the freed slave Nash turned missionary, then the old run-away slave Martha in a heart-rending search for her lost daughter, and eventually the American soldier Travis fathering a child in Britain during the Second World War. In addition the novel contains a maritime and shockingly factual diary by a slave ship captain trading on the West coast of Africa and then setting sails for the Americas.

Caryl Phillips skillfully adapts a credible voice for all of his characters, regardless of period, place, race, gender, age and social position. That in itself is remarkable. He also manages to infuse vast amounts of valid historical information into his fiction which makes the reading extraordinarily rewarding on several levels. A more well-informed and inspirational treatment of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its consequences is hard to find. And, paradoxically, reading Caryl Phillips is always a pleasure!