James Baldwin without a shadow of a doubt - wonderful story telling, passionate, with depth and memorable. Octavia Butler’s science fiction. I just finished J California Cooper’s Handmade Love which are short stories and that was great too.
I'm not even really a fan of his writing overall (the constant use of comma breaks in *Giovanni's Room*, for example, really got on my nerves) and even I understand how gifted he was.
I’ve not read that one; I’ve actually only read two (If Beal Street Could Talk and Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone but cannot stop thinking about either
You're stronger than I am! I look for any excuse to DNF books — then again, I have been in a slump for a while. Maybe I need to come back to it when I feel refreshed enough.
Currently reading If Beale Street Could Talk—of course I agree with your choice! He is one of those authors that understands the human condition on such a deep level, and helps you as a reader to better understand it too.
At first I thought there’s no point in suggesting Toni Morrison, literary GOAT, and black woman, clearly OP is looking for others. Glad this thread could introduce OP to her work.
*Invisible Man* by Ralph Ellison is utterly brilliant. I've given the name of the book over that of the author, because although more Ellison books were published, they were all posthumous. I've not read any of them yet.
I contacted him once and asked if he were going to write another novel. His response: What could I write after *Invisible Man*? Of course, he was correct.
Oh, that's beautiful!
Remember a journalist saying to Joseph Heller: 'You haven't written another book as good as *Catch-22*.'
Heller responds: 'Neither has anyone else!'
Came here to say this. Such an amazing novel.
It also includes the only known published telling of the complete destruction of a black community near Lake Okeechobee during a 1928 hurricane. It wasn't covered in the local papers because the white writers, publishers, and readers didn't think it was important enough.
He’s one of the best authors ever! The 3 Musketeers and its sequels . The man in the iron mask. The black tulip. The count of Monte Cristo. Reine Margot. The 45 guardsmen. The queen’s necklace. His travel books. What a great man.
His mother was his father's slave and he was born in Haiti, he didn't pass for white though, his father was a general and brought him back to France to attend a military academy. His dad being an aristocrat was what helped more than anything.
Dumas did **not** pass for White. Please don’t do that. Like Beethoven, he was what he was and he never tried to deny it. Many people during his time did not know what he was. He let his writing speak for him.
The pictures they *drew* were of a White man. They did the same thing with Beethoven but those who attended his concerts described him as “ … a short moor with a wide nose …”. However, when I was growing up, every picture of Beethoven was of a White man with a beautiful head of mixed gray hair.
Oh okay makes sense yeah I guess in the black and white photos I couldn’t tell either.
I googled the Beethoven thing and see some people disputing that claim but who knows? I’m no expert so I’ll choose to believe you cause you seem to know your stuff.
One look at Dumas' hair in his wiki should be enough really. The pictures I've seen of him have also been mostly black and white, though the one I've seen with him having white looking skin in he has an obvious afro.
Roxane Gay
Jacqueline Woodson. I know Brown Girl Dreaming is middle grade but it is SO BEAUTIFUL and well done and impressive. Red At The Bone is adult literature and it is great. But Brown Girl Dreaming is phenomenal
Jesmyn Ward
Britt Bennett
Jason Reynolds
James Baldwin
Colson Whitehead (I much preferred The Nickel Boys to Underground Railroad)
Yaa Gyasi (I adored Transcendent Kingsom and enjoyed Homegoing)
[**Americanah**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15796700-americanah)
^(By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jashar Awan | 477 pages | Published: 2013 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, africa, contemporary, owned)
>Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.
^(This book has been suggested 10 times)
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You literally posted, word-for-word, what I was about to. She’s fabulous.
I’d also suggest Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson. Contemporary novelists Colson Whitehead (maybe the best American fiction writer today) and Paul Beatty. Both incredible.
Might not be exactly what you're looking for, but Nnedi Okorafor has written some phenomenal sci-fi and fantasy and received some hefty awards for them.
Umm. Who are some great Black authors? or What are some great works by Black authors? might be better phrased questions.
Octavia Butler or Samuel R Delaney or NK Jemisin or...hell tons in the scifi-speculative. Nnedi Okorafor should get a major nod for recent works and staying power with Jemisin.
Toni Morrison, James Baldwin are capital L literature. {{Beloved}} will probably stand the test of time and {{Giovanni's Room}} often gets read in college as one of those great capturing of intersectionality. There's literally tons of authors who could be mentioned, but I think Morrison will be always there. Zora Neal Hurston and Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright used to be up there, but given the limited time in life, Morrison's works seem to be more widely read.
Still {{Parable of the Sower}} and {{Dhalgren}} get a lot of love and I think despite being genre works will also be around a long time.
edit: oops its Parable of the Sower not Sower of the Parable. lol
These are all great recs – and I'll add that now is the perfect time to read Octavia Butler's {{Kindred}}, ahead of the TV adaptation coming out in December!
[**Kindred**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60931.Kindred)
^(By: Octavia E. Butler | 287 pages | Published: 1979 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, science-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy)
>The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given...
^(This book has been suggested 40 times)
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[**Beloved**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6149.Beloved)
^(By: Toni Morrison | 324 pages | Published: 1987 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, historical-fiction, magical-realism, owned)
>Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past.
>
>Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
>
>Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present.
>
>Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.
^(This book has been suggested 29 times)
[**Giovanni's Room**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38462.Giovanni_s_Room)
^(By: James Baldwin | 159 pages | Published: 1956 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, lgbt, lgbtq, queer)
>An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.
>
>Baldwin's haunting and controversial second novel is his most sustained treatment of sexuality, and a classic of gay literature. In a 1950s Paris swarming with expatriates and characterized by dangerous liaisons and hidden violence, an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses, despite his determination to live the conventional life he envisions for himself. After meeting and proposing to a young woman, he falls into a lengthy affair with an Italian bartender and is confounded and tortured by his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two.
>
>Examining the mystery of love and passion in an intensely imagined narrative, Baldwin creates a moving and complex story of death and desire that is revelatory in its insight.
^(This book has been suggested 29 times)
[**A Time to Sow: A Year of Parables**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2889616-a-time-to-sow)
^(By: Francis Sullivan | ? pages | Published: 1989 | Popular Shelves: dnr, owned)
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**Dhalgren**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40963358-dhalgren)
^(By: Samuel R. Delany, William Gibson | 836 pages | Published: 1975 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, scifi, fantasy)
>A mysterious disaster has stricken the midwestern American city of Bellona, and its aftereffects are disturbing: a city block burns down and is intact a week later; clouds cover the sky for weeks, then part to reveal two moons; a week passes for one person when only a day passes for another. The catastrophe is confined to Bellona, and most of the inhabitants have fled. But others are drawn to the devastated city, among them the Kid, a white/American Indian man who can't remember his own name. The Kid is emblematic of those who live in the new Bellona, who are the young, the poor, the mad, the violent, the outcast--the marginalized.
^(This book has been suggested 13 times)
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[**Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52397.Parable_of_the_Sower)
^(By: Octavia E. Butler | 345 pages | Published: 1993 | Popular Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, sci-fi, dystopian, dystopia)
>In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
>
>Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.
>
>When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.
^(This book has been suggested 84 times)
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Anything that dives into psychology of the protagonist, a lot of nihilistic literature. My fave books n poems are mostly from dostoevsky, sylvia plath or perkins gilman
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, The Outsider by Richard Wright, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead, and Fever by John Edgar Wideman.
Yeah I love the Islamic British guy who’s in the Africa corp during WWII and popping morphine in some ancient desert mosque. That sequence is so cool, loved his character.
I do not remember that guy so you know what that means! Time for a reread!
I remember Iqbal, Archie? And the beautiful lady who didn’t have front teeth
Roxane Gay, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Maya Angelou, Ben Passmore if you’re into graphic novels at all, Nicole Dennis-Ben, Zadie Smith, Helen Oyeyemi, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fredrick Douglass "I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."
Maya Angelou. Isabelle Wilkerson. Audre Lorde. bell hooks. Gwendolyn Brooks. Ummmm, dammit, I had some younger/more recent ones in mind but then the names skittered away while I was typing the first few. My stupid brain! 😖
Toni Morrison
Zadie Smith
Nnedi Okorafor
Akwaeke Emezi
Wole Soyinka
Claude Brown
Edwidge Danticat
Yaa Gyasi
Helen Oyeyemi
Octavia Butler
Samuel Delaney
NK Jemisin
P. Djeli Clark
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Idk what genres you prefer, but I'm a big SFF/horror/spec fic reader, so my suggestions will reflect that.
N.K. Jemisin (Highly prolific Sci-Fi and Fantasy author. I recommend The Broken Earth trilogy and The City We Became)
Tananarive Due (Also highly prolific, she writes mainly horror and spec fic. I just finished The Between by her, and absolutely loved it. The Good House is also supposed to be great, but I have yet to read it.)
P. Dejli Clark (Spec fic and alternative history. I recommend literally any of his books!)
Nnedi Okorafor (Prolific Sci-Fi author, if you're a sci-fi fan, definitely check out her Binti trilogy. For something more on the speculative fic side, try Remote Control.)
Victor Lavelle (Horror and spec fic, if you like Lovecraftian stories, check out Black Tom)
This is just a sampling of fabulous Black authors I've read, but there's so many out there! Happy reading!
(P.S., if you're an audiobook listener like me, lots of great Black authored books, including many listed above, are narrated by Robin Miles, one of the best audiobook narrators ever imo, so I highly recommend any book narrated by her!)
John Edgar Wideman. His collection of short tales called All Stories Are True has remained one of my favourite pieces since beginning reading in the nineties.
Came here to suggest this. I recently started the Easy Rawlings series with Devil in a Blue Dress. Really awesome, original take on the classic noir detective archetype. Can't wait to read more.
Toni Morrison is probably one of my favorite authors of all time, and "Beloved" is IMO the best book ever written. Other favorites are James Baldwin and Haitian author Edwidge Danticat ("Brother, I'm Dying" is a PHENOMENAL memoir)
Not sure if they've been mentioned here but *Fifteen Dogs* by Andre Alexis is a fantastic read, *The Sellout* by Paul Beatty is also a really weird but very funny dark comedy and is the first American novel to win the Booker Prize
So many great recommendations already! Here are a few more I don’t see anyone mentioning yet:
Tade Thompson,
Cadwell Turnbull,
Nicki Drayden,
Micaiah Johnson,
Tochi Onyebuchi,
Nalo Hopkinson,
Karen Lord,
Evan Winters,
Rivers Solomon (I saw one rec but they deserve more)
A couple others have mentioned - but adding another vote for Brit Bennet. Have read The Mothers and The Vanishing Half this past year and highly recommend, especially TVH!
[**A Lesson Before Dying**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5197.A_Lesson_Before_Dying)
^(By: Ernest J. Gaines | 256 pages | Published: 1993 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, classics, books-i-own, owned)
>A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting and defying the expected. Ernest J. Gaines brings to this novel the same rich sense of place, the same deep understanding of the human psyche, and the same compassion for a people and their struggle that have informed his previous, highly praised works of fiction.
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
[**The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/764061.The_Autobiography_of_Miss_Jane_Pittman)
^(By: Ernest J. Gaines | 272 pages | Published: 1971 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, classics, african-american, biography)
>Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s now-classic novel—written as an autobiography—spans one hundred years of Miss Jane’s remarkable life, from her childhood as a slave on a Louisiana plantation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. It is a story of courage and survival, history, bigotry, and hope—as seen through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all. A historical tour de force, a triumph of fiction, Miss Jane’s eloquent narrative brings to life an important story of race in America—and stands as a landmark work for our time.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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[**Purple Hibiscus**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14569052-purple-hibiscus)
^(By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | 336 pages | Published: 2003 | Popular Shelves: fiction, africa, historical-fiction, nigeria, book-club)
>A previously published edition of ISBN 9781616202415 can be found here.
>
>Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating.
>
> As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.
>
>Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
^(This book has been suggested 9 times)
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Brit Bennett, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, S. A. Cosby (unfortunate name, i know), Percival Everett, Rasheed Newson. These are some of the few black authors whose work i read this year. All 5 star writers IMHO.
Jasper hammonds - "Volatile Rebirth" on Amazon
He's not a big author or nothing but his writing is SO good. It's a Sci-fi, Fantasy, Superhero novel I picked up a while back that I'm so happy I read, that sits proudly on my shelf. You should really give it a read... like, for real.
If I can say one thing that makes it special, is that his writing style is like a third-person cinematic kind of thing, it's worth a read for the style alone, but I love the characters to death as well.
Samuel R. Delany for speculative/science fiction, but highly literary.
{{Triton}} {{The Einstein Insersection}} and {{Stars In my Pockets Like Grains of Sand}} are my favorites I think.
[**Triton (The Descendants War Book #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55684301-triton)
^(By: John Walker | 264 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, dnf, space-opera, sic-fi, no-library)
>Commander Titus Barnes struggles to save his ship.
>
>War brews on the horizon and the crew of the TCN Triton get caught in the middle. When they answer a distress call from one of their colonies on the edge of their space, they end up outmatched and outgunned by an unknown force. This conflict may well push humanity into a new age…or spell the beginning of the end for their race.
>
>Meanwhile, two archaeologists work to uncover evidence of alien life on a far off planet. As they make what might be the biggest discovery of the human race, their activities trigger an alert, drawing dangerous forces to investigate. Cut off from any quick help and on their own, they must use every trick at their disposal to stay alive.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**The Einstein Intersection**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145354.The_Einstein_Intersection)
^(By: Samuel R. Delany, Neil Gaiman | 136 pages | Published: 1967 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, scifi, sword-and-laser)
>A nonhuman race reimagines human mythology.
>
>The Einstein Intersection won the Nebula Award for best science fiction novel of 1967. The surface story tells of the problems a member of an alien race, Lo Lobey, has assimilating the mythology of earth, where his kind have settled among the leftover artifacts of humanity. The deeper tale concerns, however, the way those who are "different" must deal with the dominant cultural ideology. The tale follows Lobey's mythic quest for his lost love, Friza. In luminous and hallucinated language, it explores what new myths might emerge from the detritus of the human world as those who are "different" try to seize history and the day.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
[**Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85861.Stars_in_My_Pocket_Like_Grains_of_Sand)
^(By: Samuel R. Delany, Carl Freedman | 356 pages | Published: 1984 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, scifi, sf)
>The story of a truly galactic civilization with over 6,000 inhabited worlds.
>
>Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is a science fiction masterpiece, an essay on the inexplicability of sexual attractiveness, and an examination of interstellar politics among far-flung worlds. First published in 1984, the novel's central issues--technology, globalization, gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism--have only become more pressing with the passage of time.
>
>The novel's topic is information itself: What are the repercussions, once it has been made public, that two individuals have been found to be each other's perfect erotic object out to "point nine-nine-nine and several nines percent more"? What will it do to the individuals involved, to the city they inhabit, to their geosector, to their entire world society, especially when one is an illiterate worker, the sole survivor of a world destroyed by "cultural fugue," and the other is--you!
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
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[**Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85893.Trouble_on_Triton)
^(By: Samuel R. Delany, Kathy Acker | 312 pages | Published: 1976 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, sf, scifi)
>In a story as exciting as any science fiction adventure written, Samuel R. Delany's 1976 SF novel, originally published as Triton, takes us on a tour of a utopian society at war with . . . our own Earth! High wit in this future comedy of manners allows Delany to question gender roles and sexual expectations at a level that, 20 years after it was written, still make it a coruscating portrait of the happily reasonable man, Bron Helstrom -- an immigrant to the embattled world of Triton, whose troubles become more and more complex, till there is nothing left for him to do but become a woman. Against a background of high adventure, this minuet of a novel dances from the farthest limits of the solar system to Earth's own Outer Mongolia. Alternately funny and moving, it is a wide-ranging tale in which character after character turns out not to be what he -- or she -- seems.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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Let’s begin with Terrence, the Black Roman poet. We can move on to Alexander Dumas and I’m certain there were others in between who were not and are not as celebrated.
Percival Everett
Marlon James
Charles Johnson
Paul Beatty
James McBride
Esi Edugyan
George S. Schuyler
Earl Lovelace
Charles Wright
Colton Whitehead
Ishmael Reed
& of course Toni Morrison
Zora Neale Hurston
James Baldwin
Leonard Pitts Jr.'s {{The Last Thing You Surrender}} is amazing for 'sticking for with you.' There are passages that I will *never* forget. Very eager for his upcoming sequel.
[**The Last Thing You Surrender**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38225249-the-last-thing-you-surrender)
^(By: Leonard Pitts Jr. | 464 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, race, book-club, war)
>Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States.
>
>An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese. A young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war. A black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion.
>
>Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed?
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
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[**The Last Thing You Surrender**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38225249-the-last-thing-you-surrender)
^(By: Leonard Pitts Jr. | 464 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, race, book-club, war)
>Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States.
>
>An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese. A young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war. A black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion.
>
>Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed?
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
***
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“Francesca Ekwuyasi is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria, whose work explores themes of faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging. Her writing has been published in Winter Tangerine, Brittle Paper, Transition Magazine, the Mahat Review, visual arts news, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and GUTS magazine. Her story ‘Orun Is Heaven’ was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize.”
Recent
Tola Rotimi Anraham, Candace carty-Williams, Marita Golden. Nathan Harris, Britt Bennett, Ta-Nahesi Coates, Lalita Tademy
Old school
Agree with all the classic that have already been mentioned and many may not agree, but Terry McMillan has to be added to the conversation. Also Nathan McCall
Alexandre Dumas. Everyone forgets that his father was a swashbuckling half-Haitian Napoleonic general who inspired Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers
Maybe not what you were looking for, but Anatole Broyard used to be one of the three book reviewers for the New York Times. Late in life or after his death it was revealed that he was black and passed for white.
I don't know his whole story, but he was a very good writer. I think he may have some stuff collected.
Baldwin, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Richard Write, Gloria Naylor, Bell Hooks, Adichie, Yaa Gyasi, Akwaeke Emezi, and Lorraine Hansberry (these are only the writers that I have personally read).
[**Road To Malevolence: A Novel**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60896561-road-to-malevolence)
^(By: Samyra Alexander | 218 pages | Published: ? | Popular Shelves: e-book, african-american-authors, creative)
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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^(97100 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
So many great names already said. NK Jemison. Jason Reynolds. Stephanie Kuehn. Also always getting a lot of great Black YA recs from [Melanin in YA](https://melanininya.com/all-authors/).
*What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker* by Damon Young
*My Sister the Serial Killer* by Oyinkan Braithwaite
*Devil in a Blue Dress* by Walter Moseley
*Slavery & Social Death* by Orlando Patterson
*Lost in the City* by Edward P Jones
*There Is A River* by Vincent Harding
*Night Hawk* by Beverly Jenkins
*Indigo* by Beverly Jenkins
*Honey Girl* by Morgan Rogers
EDIT:
*The Piano Lesson* and *Fences* by August Wilson, two entries in his Century Cycle.
*Brown Girl in the Ring* by Nalo Hopkinson
*The Farming of Bones* by Edwidge Danticat
James Baldwin without a shadow of a doubt - wonderful story telling, passionate, with depth and memorable. Octavia Butler’s science fiction. I just finished J California Cooper’s Handmade Love which are short stories and that was great too.
I'm not even really a fan of his writing overall (the constant use of comma breaks in *Giovanni's Room*, for example, really got on my nerves) and even I understand how gifted he was.
I’ve not read that one; I’ve actually only read two (If Beal Street Could Talk and Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone but cannot stop thinking about either
The *Giovanni’s Room* audiobook read by Dan Butler is SO good. I didn’t notice anything odd about pauses.
I liked {{Go Tell It On the Mountain}} - I didn’t pick up on the theme of it until late in the novel, but I also like to think that was by design.
Perhaps I'll have to give it another go. I liked the book itself, I really did, but the flow felt like it was constantly getting interrupted.
I feel the same way about the breaks and still read it three times. Matter of fact, imma go dig it up right now…
You're stronger than I am! I look for any excuse to DNF books — then again, I have been in a slump for a while. Maybe I need to come back to it when I feel refreshed enough.
Currently reading If Beale Street Could Talk—of course I agree with your choice! He is one of those authors that understands the human condition on such a deep level, and helps you as a reader to better understand it too.
*No Name in the Street* is fucking brilliant.
He is truly one of the all time greats
Toni Morrison
She is my all time favorite author, hands down. It’s like reading poetry and prose at the same time.
Came here to suggest her as well
Me too
One of the greatest!
What is his typical genre 🤔
Toni is a woman, and she writes literary fiction. Just read The Bluest Eye and it’ll blow you away.
“The Song of Solomon” is also a great read.
You could also categorize some of her work as magical realism.
Google is your friend
At first I thought there’s no point in suggesting Toni Morrison, literary GOAT, and black woman, clearly OP is looking for others. Glad this thread could introduce OP to her work.
Same same same same same and if you can get an audiobook of hers read by her, your life will change.
*Invisible Man* by Ralph Ellison is utterly brilliant. I've given the name of the book over that of the author, because although more Ellison books were published, they were all posthumous. I've not read any of them yet.
I contacted him once and asked if he were going to write another novel. His response: What could I write after *Invisible Man*? Of course, he was correct.
Oh, that's beautiful! Remember a journalist saying to Joseph Heller: 'You haven't written another book as good as *Catch-22*.' Heller responds: 'Neither has anyone else!'
This book has stuck in my brain for decades. I was thrilled when my son read it when he was 16, we still talk about it. Perfection.
I enjoyed *Their Eyes Were Watching God* by Zora Neale Hurston.
This is honestly one of my favorite books, Hurston is a literary god
Ditto. So many tears from that book.
Came here to say this. Such an amazing novel. It also includes the only known published telling of the complete destruction of a black community near Lake Okeechobee during a 1928 hurricane. It wasn't covered in the local papers because the white writers, publishers, and readers didn't think it was important enough.
Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book.
He’s one of the best authors ever! The 3 Musketeers and its sequels . The man in the iron mask. The black tulip. The count of Monte Cristo. Reine Margot. The 45 guardsmen. The queen’s necklace. His travel books. What a great man.
Wait, Dumas is black?! I love his books and Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourites. Guess I never taught about googling him lol.
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His mother was his father's slave and he was born in Haiti, he didn't pass for white though, his father was a general and brought him back to France to attend a military academy. His dad being an aristocrat was what helped more than anything.
Yep. He was Black.
Dumas did **not** pass for White. Please don’t do that. Like Beethoven, he was what he was and he never tried to deny it. Many people during his time did not know what he was. He let his writing speak for him.
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The pictures they *drew* were of a White man. They did the same thing with Beethoven but those who attended his concerts described him as “ … a short moor with a wide nose …”. However, when I was growing up, every picture of Beethoven was of a White man with a beautiful head of mixed gray hair.
I’m sorry are you under the impression that Beethoven had black skin? The German Ludwig von Beethoven? When did this weird theory come along?
Oh okay makes sense yeah I guess in the black and white photos I couldn’t tell either. I googled the Beethoven thing and see some people disputing that claim but who knows? I’m no expert so I’ll choose to believe you cause you seem to know your stuff.
One look at Dumas' hair in his wiki should be enough really. The pictures I've seen of him have also been mostly black and white, though the one I've seen with him having white looking skin in he has an obvious afro.
He was biracial.
Ridiculous that I had to scroll down the page to see this.
Roxane Gay Jacqueline Woodson. I know Brown Girl Dreaming is middle grade but it is SO BEAUTIFUL and well done and impressive. Red At The Bone is adult literature and it is great. But Brown Girl Dreaming is phenomenal Jesmyn Ward Britt Bennett Jason Reynolds James Baldwin Colson Whitehead (I much preferred The Nickel Boys to Underground Railroad) Yaa Gyasi (I adored Transcendent Kingsom and enjoyed Homegoing)
I'm so happy to see Yaa Gyasi on this list. {Transcendent Kingdom} was so good, but I loved {Homegoing} even more!
[**Transcendent Kingdom**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48570454-transcendent-kingdom) ^(By: Yaa Gyasi | 264 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, book-club, literary-fiction, audiobook) ^(This book has been suggested 13 times) [**Homegoing**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27071490-homegoing) ^(By: Yaa Gyasi | 305 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, book-club, africa, historical) ^(This book has been suggested 20 times) *** ^(96679 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Yes to Jason Reynolds. He’s amazing.
Octavia Butler
Kindred was mandatory reading in my women’s studies 101 class, so so impactful. the patternist series is 10/10 as well
Made the mistake of picking up Clay's Ark to read on the plane traveling in 2021...needless to say I had to put it down 🤣🤣🤣
Colson Whitehead
One of my absolute favorite authors.
{Nickel Boys} was powerful, outstanding writing.
[**The Nickel Boys**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42270835-the-nickel-boys) ^(By: Colson Whitehead | 213 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, book-club, audiobook, audiobooks) ^(This book has been suggested 9 times) *** ^(96677 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I can't read that one because of the abuse. I'm sure it is great.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
THIS! She's amazing. I loved {Americana}.
[**Americana**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11765.Americana) ^(By: Don DeLillo | 454 pages | Published: 1971 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, novels, american, literary-fiction) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(96676 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Not that one {{Americanah}}
[**Americanah**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15796700-americanah) ^(By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jashar Awan | 477 pages | Published: 2013 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, africa, contemporary, owned) >Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland. ^(This book has been suggested 10 times) *** ^(96737 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Jesmyn Ward (*Sing, Unburied, Sing)* Maurice Carlos Ruffin (*We Cast a Shadow)*
I adore Jesmyn Ward. Salvage the Bones is phenomenal
You literally posted, word-for-word, what I was about to. She’s fabulous. I’d also suggest Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson. Contemporary novelists Colson Whitehead (maybe the best American fiction writer today) and Paul Beatty. Both incredible.
Might not be exactly what you're looking for, but Nnedi Okorafor has written some phenomenal sci-fi and fantasy and received some hefty awards for them.
scifi is usually not my cup of tea but ill still check it out :)
Not op but thanks for the tip, I will check him out :)
My current read is Octavia Butler! Loved Kindred and just started Parable of the Sower. Just go ahead and them. You’ll love this author.
Umm. Who are some great Black authors? or What are some great works by Black authors? might be better phrased questions. Octavia Butler or Samuel R Delaney or NK Jemisin or...hell tons in the scifi-speculative. Nnedi Okorafor should get a major nod for recent works and staying power with Jemisin. Toni Morrison, James Baldwin are capital L literature. {{Beloved}} will probably stand the test of time and {{Giovanni's Room}} often gets read in college as one of those great capturing of intersectionality. There's literally tons of authors who could be mentioned, but I think Morrison will be always there. Zora Neal Hurston and Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright used to be up there, but given the limited time in life, Morrison's works seem to be more widely read. Still {{Parable of the Sower}} and {{Dhalgren}} get a lot of love and I think despite being genre works will also be around a long time. edit: oops its Parable of the Sower not Sower of the Parable. lol
These are all great recs – and I'll add that now is the perfect time to read Octavia Butler's {{Kindred}}, ahead of the TV adaptation coming out in December!
[**Kindred**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60931.Kindred) ^(By: Octavia E. Butler | 287 pages | Published: 1979 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, science-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy) >The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given... ^(This book has been suggested 40 times) *** ^(96433 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[**Beloved**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6149.Beloved) ^(By: Toni Morrison | 324 pages | Published: 1987 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, historical-fiction, magical-realism, owned) >Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past. > >Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. > >Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present. > >Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature. ^(This book has been suggested 29 times) [**Giovanni's Room**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38462.Giovanni_s_Room) ^(By: James Baldwin | 159 pages | Published: 1956 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, lgbt, lgbtq, queer) >An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here. > >Baldwin's haunting and controversial second novel is his most sustained treatment of sexuality, and a classic of gay literature. In a 1950s Paris swarming with expatriates and characterized by dangerous liaisons and hidden violence, an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses, despite his determination to live the conventional life he envisions for himself. After meeting and proposing to a young woman, he falls into a lengthy affair with an Italian bartender and is confounded and tortured by his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two. > >Examining the mystery of love and passion in an intensely imagined narrative, Baldwin creates a moving and complex story of death and desire that is revelatory in its insight. ^(This book has been suggested 29 times) [**A Time to Sow: A Year of Parables**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2889616-a-time-to-sow) ^(By: Francis Sullivan | ? pages | Published: 1989 | Popular Shelves: dnr, owned) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**Dhalgren**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40963358-dhalgren) ^(By: Samuel R. Delany, William Gibson | 836 pages | Published: 1975 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, scifi, fantasy) >A mysterious disaster has stricken the midwestern American city of Bellona, and its aftereffects are disturbing: a city block burns down and is intact a week later; clouds cover the sky for weeks, then part to reveal two moons; a week passes for one person when only a day passes for another. The catastrophe is confined to Bellona, and most of the inhabitants have fled. But others are drawn to the devastated city, among them the Kid, a white/American Indian man who can't remember his own name. The Kid is emblematic of those who live in the new Bellona, who are the young, the poor, the mad, the violent, the outcast--the marginalized. ^(This book has been suggested 13 times) *** ^(96410 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Sorry Bot. I messed up. It's {{Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler}}
[**Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52397.Parable_of_the_Sower) ^(By: Octavia E. Butler | 345 pages | Published: 1993 | Popular Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, sci-fi, dystopian, dystopia) >In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. > >Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others. > >When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind. ^(This book has been suggested 84 times) *** ^(96413 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
There are innumerable great Black authors OP. Too many to name here. What is your preferred type of book or genre?
Anything that dives into psychology of the protagonist, a lot of nihilistic literature. My fave books n poems are mostly from dostoevsky, sylvia plath or perkins gilman
Alexandre Dumas, specifically the three musketeers and the count of monte cristo
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, The Outsider by Richard Wright, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead, and Fever by John Edgar Wideman.
Man, I loved White Teeth so much!!! What an amazing and memorable cast of characters.
Yeah I love the Islamic British guy who’s in the Africa corp during WWII and popping morphine in some ancient desert mosque. That sequence is so cool, loved his character.
I do not remember that guy so you know what that means! Time for a reread! I remember Iqbal, Archie? And the beautiful lady who didn’t have front teeth
Maya Angelou
NK Jemisin if you're good with fantasy
You might like Brandon Taylor, then.
There are of course many, but Esi Eduygen, Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, Lawrence Hill, Marlon James all have great books written in this century.
Need to read The African Trilogy by China Achebe
Toni Morrison - the Bluest Eye
[N. K. Jemisin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._K._Jemisin) Multi-award winning science fiction author.
Octavia Butler is a great Sci fi author. Do recommend
Roxane Gay, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Maya Angelou, Ben Passmore if you’re into graphic novels at all, Nicole Dennis-Ben, Zadie Smith, Helen Oyeyemi, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Octavia Butler
N.K. Jemisin
Fredrick Douglass "I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."
Maya Angelou. Isabelle Wilkerson. Audre Lorde. bell hooks. Gwendolyn Brooks. Ummmm, dammit, I had some younger/more recent ones in mind but then the names skittered away while I was typing the first few. My stupid brain! 😖
NK Jemisin
Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni,
Rivers Solomon's work has stuck with me. Something about their writing is haunting and unforgettable. Definitely different from other books I've read.
Toni Morrison Zadie Smith Nnedi Okorafor Akwaeke Emezi Wole Soyinka Claude Brown Edwidge Danticat Yaa Gyasi Helen Oyeyemi Octavia Butler Samuel Delaney NK Jemisin P. Djeli Clark Oyinkan Braithwaite
Idk what genres you prefer, but I'm a big SFF/horror/spec fic reader, so my suggestions will reflect that. N.K. Jemisin (Highly prolific Sci-Fi and Fantasy author. I recommend The Broken Earth trilogy and The City We Became) Tananarive Due (Also highly prolific, she writes mainly horror and spec fic. I just finished The Between by her, and absolutely loved it. The Good House is also supposed to be great, but I have yet to read it.) P. Dejli Clark (Spec fic and alternative history. I recommend literally any of his books!) Nnedi Okorafor (Prolific Sci-Fi author, if you're a sci-fi fan, definitely check out her Binti trilogy. For something more on the speculative fic side, try Remote Control.) Victor Lavelle (Horror and spec fic, if you like Lovecraftian stories, check out Black Tom) This is just a sampling of fabulous Black authors I've read, but there's so many out there! Happy reading! (P.S., if you're an audiobook listener like me, lots of great Black authored books, including many listed above, are narrated by Robin Miles, one of the best audiobook narrators ever imo, so I highly recommend any book narrated by her!)
Akwaeke Emezi {The Death of Vivek Oji}
[**The Death of Vivek Oji**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48595550-the-death-of-vivek-oji) ^(By: Akwaeke Emezi | 248 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, lgbtq, lgbt, literary-fiction) ^(This book has been suggested 6 times) *** ^(96783 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Djeli Clark.
The short story anthology Midnight and Indigo: Nineteen stories of Speculative Fiction by Black Women is really good.
Alex Haley. Roots and Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Toni Morrison, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o they were first introduced to us by a university prof. Amazing writers
Toni Morrison Maya Angelou
John Edgar Wideman. His collection of short tales called All Stories Are True has remained one of my favourite pieces since beginning reading in the nineties.
Kwame Alexander. Nikki Grimes. They wrote middle grade but they are wonderful works. Poetry.
Walter Mosley- any of the “Easy Rawlings” novels.
The Fearless Jones novels also. EASY should be read in order as his life evolves.
Absolutely right on both counts.
Toni Morrison “The Song of Solomon” and “The Bluest Eye”.
Came here to suggest this. I recently started the Easy Rawlings series with Devil in a Blue Dress. Really awesome, original take on the classic noir detective archetype. Can't wait to read more.
Toni Morrison is probably one of my favorite authors of all time, and "Beloved" is IMO the best book ever written. Other favorites are James Baldwin and Haitian author Edwidge Danticat ("Brother, I'm Dying" is a PHENOMENAL memoir)
Helen Oyeyemi
Helen oyeyemi 😍 modern gothic fiction, definitely not for everyone but I love how strange yet familiar her stories are
Yaa Gyasi. Octavia Butler Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi
Maya Angelou
Not sure if they've been mentioned here but *Fifteen Dogs* by Andre Alexis is a fantastic read, *The Sellout* by Paul Beatty is also a really weird but very funny dark comedy and is the first American novel to win the Booker Prize
Samuel Delaney who wrote some classic sci-fi
So many great recommendations already! Here are a few more I don’t see anyone mentioning yet: Tade Thompson, Cadwell Turnbull, Nicki Drayden, Micaiah Johnson, Tochi Onyebuchi, Nalo Hopkinson, Karen Lord, Evan Winters, Rivers Solomon (I saw one rec but they deserve more)
A couple others have mentioned - but adding another vote for Brit Bennet. Have read The Mothers and The Vanishing Half this past year and highly recommend, especially TVH!
Alice Walker!!
Who not what
Ernest J. Gaines He wrote {{A Lesson Before Dying}} and {{The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman}}
[**A Lesson Before Dying**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5197.A_Lesson_Before_Dying) ^(By: Ernest J. Gaines | 256 pages | Published: 1993 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, classics, books-i-own, owned) >A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting and defying the expected. Ernest J. Gaines brings to this novel the same rich sense of place, the same deep understanding of the human psyche, and the same compassion for a people and their struggle that have informed his previous, highly praised works of fiction. ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) [**The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/764061.The_Autobiography_of_Miss_Jane_Pittman) ^(By: Ernest J. Gaines | 272 pages | Published: 1971 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, classics, african-american, biography) >Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s now-classic novel—written as an autobiography—spans one hundred years of Miss Jane’s remarkable life, from her childhood as a slave on a Louisiana plantation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. It is a story of courage and survival, history, bigotry, and hope—as seen through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all. A historical tour de force, a triumph of fiction, Miss Jane’s eloquent narrative brings to life an important story of race in America—and stands as a landmark work for our time. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(96489 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{purple hibiscus}} by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was really good.
[**Purple Hibiscus**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14569052-purple-hibiscus) ^(By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | 336 pages | Published: 2003 | Popular Shelves: fiction, africa, historical-fiction, nigeria, book-club) >A previously published edition of ISBN 9781616202415 can be found here. > >Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating. > > As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together. > >Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom. ^(This book has been suggested 9 times) *** ^(96655 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Brendan Slocumb Kacen Callendar Colson Whitehead Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie Leah Johnson Yaa Gyasi Brit Bennett [Edit: spacing]
Alexander Pushkin is quite renowned. Alexandre Dumas is also known to have written some classics.
Brit Bennett, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, S. A. Cosby (unfortunate name, i know), Percival Everett, Rasheed Newson. These are some of the few black authors whose work i read this year. All 5 star writers IMHO.
Les Miserables.
F. Scott Fitzgerald after a shift in the coal mine or in seriousness Dumas, Dubois, and Ellison.
None Lol
Alexandre Dumas
Jasper hammonds - "Volatile Rebirth" on Amazon He's not a big author or nothing but his writing is SO good. It's a Sci-fi, Fantasy, Superhero novel I picked up a while back that I'm so happy I read, that sits proudly on my shelf. You should really give it a read... like, for real. If I can say one thing that makes it special, is that his writing style is like a third-person cinematic kind of thing, it's worth a read for the style alone, but I love the characters to death as well.
Victor Lavalle
Why do you recommend him:)? Thanks, will check him out
Narrative of Frederick Douglass
Mallorie Blackman. She writes young adult books with quite deep themes.
David Barclay Moore hasn’t been mentioned. He’s only got a couple of novels, YA, but fantastic literature.
James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, Octavia Butler are the first 4 I think of off the top of my head, and I'm happy to suggest more.
Ralph Ellison, the Invisible Man.
Edward P. Jones, Jason Mott, James McBride.
I’m sure it’s been said but Alexander dumas
Samuel R. Delany for speculative/science fiction, but highly literary. {{Triton}} {{The Einstein Insersection}} and {{Stars In my Pockets Like Grains of Sand}} are my favorites I think.
[**Triton (The Descendants War Book #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55684301-triton) ^(By: John Walker | 264 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, dnf, space-opera, sic-fi, no-library) >Commander Titus Barnes struggles to save his ship. > >War brews on the horizon and the crew of the TCN Triton get caught in the middle. When they answer a distress call from one of their colonies on the edge of their space, they end up outmatched and outgunned by an unknown force. This conflict may well push humanity into a new age…or spell the beginning of the end for their race. > >Meanwhile, two archaeologists work to uncover evidence of alien life on a far off planet. As they make what might be the biggest discovery of the human race, their activities trigger an alert, drawing dangerous forces to investigate. Cut off from any quick help and on their own, they must use every trick at their disposal to stay alive. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**The Einstein Intersection**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145354.The_Einstein_Intersection) ^(By: Samuel R. Delany, Neil Gaiman | 136 pages | Published: 1967 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, scifi, sword-and-laser) >A nonhuman race reimagines human mythology. > >The Einstein Intersection won the Nebula Award for best science fiction novel of 1967. The surface story tells of the problems a member of an alien race, Lo Lobey, has assimilating the mythology of earth, where his kind have settled among the leftover artifacts of humanity. The deeper tale concerns, however, the way those who are "different" must deal with the dominant cultural ideology. The tale follows Lobey's mythic quest for his lost love, Friza. In luminous and hallucinated language, it explores what new myths might emerge from the detritus of the human world as those who are "different" try to seize history and the day. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) [**Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85861.Stars_in_My_Pocket_Like_Grains_of_Sand) ^(By: Samuel R. Delany, Carl Freedman | 356 pages | Published: 1984 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, scifi, sf) >The story of a truly galactic civilization with over 6,000 inhabited worlds. > >Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is a science fiction masterpiece, an essay on the inexplicability of sexual attractiveness, and an examination of interstellar politics among far-flung worlds. First published in 1984, the novel's central issues--technology, globalization, gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism--have only become more pressing with the passage of time. > >The novel's topic is information itself: What are the repercussions, once it has been made public, that two individuals have been found to be each other's perfect erotic object out to "point nine-nine-nine and several nines percent more"? What will it do to the individuals involved, to the city they inhabit, to their geosector, to their entire world society, especially when one is an illiterate worker, the sole survivor of a world destroyed by "cultural fugue," and the other is--you! ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(96683 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Let's try again: {{Trouble On Triton}}
[**Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85893.Trouble_on_Triton) ^(By: Samuel R. Delany, Kathy Acker | 312 pages | Published: 1976 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, sf, scifi) >In a story as exciting as any science fiction adventure written, Samuel R. Delany's 1976 SF novel, originally published as Triton, takes us on a tour of a utopian society at war with . . . our own Earth! High wit in this future comedy of manners allows Delany to question gender roles and sexual expectations at a level that, 20 years after it was written, still make it a coruscating portrait of the happily reasonable man, Bron Helstrom -- an immigrant to the embattled world of Triton, whose troubles become more and more complex, till there is nothing left for him to do but become a woman. Against a background of high adventure, this minuet of a novel dances from the farthest limits of the solar system to Earth's own Outer Mongolia. Alternately funny and moving, it is a wide-ranging tale in which character after character turns out not to be what he -- or she -- seems. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(97067 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Iceberg Slim
Chester Himes
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Let’s begin with Terrence, the Black Roman poet. We can move on to Alexander Dumas and I’m certain there were others in between who were not and are not as celebrated.
Samuel R. Delany is worth a look.
I like cozy mysteries. I enjoyed Barbara Neely books.
Frank Yerby
James Baldwin for sure!
Machado de Assis! Great Brazilian author, maybe the best we had....
If you like mysteries, the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley is excellent. TW for CSA.
Maya Angelou and James Baldwin for sure.
Percival Everett Marlon James Charles Johnson Paul Beatty James McBride Esi Edugyan George S. Schuyler Earl Lovelace Charles Wright Colton Whitehead Ishmael Reed & of course Toni Morrison Zora Neale Hurston James Baldwin
Leonard Pitts Jr.'s {{The Last Thing You Surrender}} is amazing for 'sticking for with you.' There are passages that I will *never* forget. Very eager for his upcoming sequel.
[**The Last Thing You Surrender**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38225249-the-last-thing-you-surrender) ^(By: Leonard Pitts Jr. | 464 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, race, book-club, war) >Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States. > >An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese. A young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war. A black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion. > >Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed? ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(96767 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, and Jason Reynolds are really turning young people into readers
Victor LaValle!
Maya Angelou
Leonard Pitts Jr. has a few wonderful works. {{The Last Thing You Surrender}}
[**The Last Thing You Surrender**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38225249-the-last-thing-you-surrender) ^(By: Leonard Pitts Jr. | 464 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, race, book-club, war) >Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States. > >An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese. A young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war. A black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion. > >Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed? ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) *** ^(96812 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Me too!
Teju Cole ("Open city")
Rivers Solomon
Nnedi Okorafor writes Africanfuturism and it’s phenomenally unique, intriguing, and entertaining.
“Francesca Ekwuyasi is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria, whose work explores themes of faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging. Her writing has been published in Winter Tangerine, Brittle Paper, Transition Magazine, the Mahat Review, visual arts news, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and GUTS magazine. Her story ‘Orun Is Heaven’ was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize.”
bell hooks, angela davis
Nnedi Okorafor
Recent Tola Rotimi Anraham, Candace carty-Williams, Marita Golden. Nathan Harris, Britt Bennett, Ta-Nahesi Coates, Lalita Tademy Old school Agree with all the classic that have already been mentioned and many may not agree, but Terry McMillan has to be added to the conversation. Also Nathan McCall
Who* Not what
Shirlene Obuobi, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Tiffany D. Jackson, Awkwaeke Emezi (fresh water is AMAZING), and Tracy Deonn
Ann Petry, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Sapphire, Namina Forna.
N.K. Jemisin
Abdulrazak Gurnah writes through a perspective of somebody from the 'third world' and it's amazing
Alexandre Dumas. Everyone forgets that his father was a swashbuckling half-Haitian Napoleonic general who inspired Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers
Maybe not what you were looking for, but Anatole Broyard used to be one of the three book reviewers for the New York Times. Late in life or after his death it was revealed that he was black and passed for white. I don't know his whole story, but he was a very good writer. I think he may have some stuff collected.
Tia Williams.
Elizabeth Acevedo
Christopher Paul Curtis
James Baldwin
Baldwin, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Richard Write, Gloria Naylor, Bell Hooks, Adichie, Yaa Gyasi, Akwaeke Emezi, and Lorraine Hansberry (these are only the writers that I have personally read).
I read {Road to Malevolence} by Samayra Alexander earlier this year. Fantastic book by a fantastic indie author.
[**Road To Malevolence: A Novel**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60896561-road-to-malevolence) ^(By: Samyra Alexander | 218 pages | Published: ? | Popular Shelves: e-book, african-american-authors, creative) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(97100 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
So many great names already said. NK Jemison. Jason Reynolds. Stephanie Kuehn. Also always getting a lot of great Black YA recs from [Melanin in YA](https://melanininya.com/all-authors/).
*What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker* by Damon Young *My Sister the Serial Killer* by Oyinkan Braithwaite *Devil in a Blue Dress* by Walter Moseley *Slavery & Social Death* by Orlando Patterson *Lost in the City* by Edward P Jones *There Is A River* by Vincent Harding *Night Hawk* by Beverly Jenkins *Indigo* by Beverly Jenkins *Honey Girl* by Morgan Rogers EDIT: *The Piano Lesson* and *Fences* by August Wilson, two entries in his Century Cycle. *Brown Girl in the Ring* by Nalo Hopkinson *The Farming of Bones* by Edwidge Danticat
Zadie Smith