5 Books by Black Authors You Need to Get Your Hands (And Eyes) on
There are 5 books I truly think
everyone in the world needs to pick up and read; doesn't matter if you’re male, female, black,
brown, white -- whatever gender you are or race you're from.
Even if your heart sings for
a different genre, or perhaps you’re not much of a reader (which I should think
you sort of are, if you’re reading this post 😉), I implore -- or perhaps dare -- you to read one of these books I've listed below. You don’t know how you’ll feel about it if you don’t
try it, so... try it. They’re great books that embody all that literature is
about – opening our eyes to things and truths we never saw or even knew were
there. They all push boundaries and share powerful messages that are meant to
be shared -- messages on racial prejudice, discrimination, inequality, body image, the strive for perfection, societal pressure, and so on. So here I am, sharing. Enjoy!
This deeply sensitive and powerful
debut novel tells the story of a thirteen-year-old who must overcome
internalized racism and a verbally abusive family to finally learn to love
herself.
There are
ninety-six things Genesis hates about herself. She knows the exact number
because she keeps a list. Like #95: Because her skin is so dark, people call
her charcoal and eggplant—even her own family. And #61: Because her family is
always being put out of their house, belongings laid out on the sidewalk for
the world to see. When your dad is a gambling addict and loses the rent money
every month, eviction is a regular occurrence.
What’s not
so regular is that this time they all don’t have a place to crash, so Genesis
and her mom have to stay with her grandma. It’s not that Genesis doesn’t like
her grandma, but she and Mom always fight—Grandma haranguing Mom to leave Dad,
that she should have gone back to school, that if she’d married a lighter
skinned man none of this would be happening, and on and on and on. But things
aren’t all bad. Genesis actually likes her new school; she’s made a couple
friends, her choir teacher says she has real talent, and she even encourages
Genesis to join the talent show.
But how can
Genesis believe anything her teacher says when her dad tells her the exact
opposite? How can she stand up in front of all those people with her dark, dark
skin knowing even her own family thinks lesser of her because of it? Why, why,
why won’t the lemon or yogurt or fancy creams lighten her skin like they’re
supposed to? And when Genesis reaches #100 on the list of things she hates
about herself, will she continue on, or can she find the strength to begin
again?
One of the most highly praised novels of the
year, the debut from an astonishing young writer, Freshwater tells the
story of Ada, an unusual child who is a source of deep concern to her southern
Nigerian family. Young Ada is troubled, prone to violent fits. Born “with one
foot on the other side,” she begins to develop separate selves within her as
she grows into adulthood. And when she travels to America for college, a
traumatic event on campus crystallizes the selves into something powerful and
potentially dangerous, making Ada fade into the background of her own mind as
these alters—now protective, now hedonistic—move into control. Written with
stylistic brilliance and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater dazzles with
ferocious energy and serpentine grace.
Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are
born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an
Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast
Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the
very same castle, and sold into slavery. Homegoing follows the
parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight
generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the
American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel
illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those
who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul
of our nation.
Sixteen-year-old
Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives
and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between
these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her
childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was
unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are
calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are
taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try
to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went
down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her
community. It could also endanger her life.
In
her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has
written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own
emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared
anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who
describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the
tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she
explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a
turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to
understand and ultimately save herself.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that
have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane
explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your
hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body
that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your
world becomes.
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