This article tackles gender and intergenerational relations in the novels Tels des astres éteints [Like Estinguished Stars, 2008] and Ces âmes chagrines [These Troubled Souls, 2011] by Léonora Miano, currently the most successful francophone female author of Cameroonian origin. Both texts are characterized by a nuanced engagement with migrant masculinities that are situated differently in relation to male-dominated white majority society. These position(ing)s are unpacked using concepts developed by the sociologist R. W. Connell, who differentiates between subordinated and hegemonic forms of masculinity. Furthermore, the article shows how, in the two novels, transatlantic and colonial histories are symbolized through family relations -notably mother-son relationshipsand how Miano's use of the trope resembles and differs from manifestations in male-authored African literature and female-authored African American and Caribbean literature. Contrary to interpretations by other researchers, it does not fully endorse a view of Miano as a gender-progressive or 'queer' author.Léonora Miano is presently one of the best-known and most prolific female authors of African origin on the French literary scene. She has published ten novels as well as a range of publications in other literary genres and has received almost a dozen literary prizes, among them the prestigious Prix Femina and the Goncourt des Lycéens. Inspired by US American Africana Studies, she is also a theorist of the African diaspora. She adopted the term "Afropéa" to create a transnational space of belonging for Europeans of African descent, who equally define themselves by their European and African or Caribbean heritage (Miano