African American Literature Fiction

Meet Heaven: a young girl who is loving, submissive, and beyond appreciative of her husband, Ross. As a teenager, Heaven lived solely for her sister, Divine, and her daughter, Sunshine. Because her mother is mentally ill and her father ran off, Heaven had to do some unimaginable things just to feed the family. Then came Ross, and everything changed. He wasn't some filthy rich, dope boy that some young girls dream of, but Heaven felt like Ross was her blessing.

A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.

An unprecedented historical and literary event, this tale written in the 1850s is the only known novel by a female African American slave, and quite possibly the first novel written by a black woman anywhere. A work recently uncovered by renowned scholar and professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., it is a stirring tale of "passing" and the adventures of a young slave as she makes her way to freedom.

When World War I began, it seemed unlikely that a unit such as the Harlem Hellfighters would ever be formed. Given their nickname by their German foes who admired their bravery, the Harlem Hellfighters were members of the 369th, an all-Black regiment. The 369th played key roles in critical battles and helped secure an Allied victory.

A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, Soledad Brother is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life. Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled Black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.

For successful African American businesswoman Zoe Reynard, finding the pleasure she wants, the way she wants it, is not worth the risk of losing everything she has: marriage to the man she has loved since childhood, a thriving company, three wonderful children. But Zoe feels helpless in the grip of an overpowering addiction—to sex.

We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made - and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests.

For years, young Mud and her family have roamed the high grasses, swamps, and deserts of the sub-Sahara. Now the earth is scorched by drought, and the mutilated bodies of family and friends lie scattered on the ground, shot down by ivory hunters. Nothing - not the once familiar terrain, or the age-old rhythms of life, or even memory itself - seems reliable anymore. Yet a slim prophecy of hope is passed on from water hole to water hole: the sacred white bone of legend will point the elephants toward the Safe Place.

Asia's mother went missing 18 years ago and since then, Asia has feared the one thing she always dreamt of working with. The ocean. So instead, she's been living life as a lab tech. She doesn't exactly love her job, but it pays the bills and she has money to spend on nights out with her girls. However, her most recent night out ends up with her gaining markings on her skin and losing body parts....

January 1970 finds Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, LA’s premier Black detective, at 50 years of age despite all expectations. He has a loving family, a beautiful home, and a thriving investigation agency. All is right with the world… and then Amethystine Stoller, his own personal Helen of Troy, arrives. Her ex-husband is missing. A simple enough case. But even as Easy takes his first step in the investigation he trips. He falls into the memory of things past. Little things, like loss, love, a world war, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own.

"The Heroic Slave" is the only work of fiction by the eminent abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The narrative was inspired by Madison Washington, a slave on the Creole who led a rebellion on the ship in November 1841, and had it sail to Nassau in the Bahamas instead of New Orleans. The short story appeared in the collection Autographs for Freedom (1852).

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson received the Coretta Scott King Award for her children’s book Almost to Freedom. Here she relays the extraordinary story of Bass Reeves, a lawman in the Old West who escaped slavery to become one of the most successful U.S. Marshals in history.

Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.

Meet the Banks sisters - Simone, Bunny, Tallhya, and Ginger. They feel like they are finally in the clear in connection with the recent bank robberies - until their mother shows up demanding her share at gunpoint. She threatens to snitch them out if they don't come correct. The situation becomes a bloody mess, and now two sisters must band together to cover up the unthinkable actions of one of their own. As if that isn't enough, Pastor Cassius Street hits them with another major blow.

Valentino is a brutal assassin entangled in a dangerous hunt of cat and mouse. His target, Sade is the queen on this chessboard of darkness and an unexpected twist that turns the game on its head.

Yoshi Lomax loves playing dirty. She'll do whatever it takes to win a case - including bribing cops, sleeping with her superiors, and convincing her DEA pals to make evidence disappear. But when Yoshi runs out of tricks while defending a Haitian mob boss, the gangster makes one thing clear: Yoshi either wins the case or loses her life.

In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjurer who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours. It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment—a truly secluded community where her people may flourish—takes root.

In a land ruled by ruthless Fae, twenty-one-year-old Lore Alemeyu’s village is trapped in a forested prison. Lore knows that any escape attempt is futile—her scars are a testament to her past failures. But when her village is threatened, Lore makes a desperate deal with a Fae lord. She will leave her home to catalog/organize an enchanted library that hasn’t been touched in a thousand years. No Fae may enter the library, but there is a chance a human might be able to breach the cursed doors.

Felicia Lyons, a stressed-out stay-at-home mom, struggles to sprint ahead of the demands of motherhood while her husband spends long days at the office. Felicia taps, utters mantras, and breathes her way through most situations, but on some days, like when the children won't stop screaming her name or arguing over toy trucks and pretzel sticks, she wonders what it would be like to get in her car and drive away.

Louis Armstrong, also known as “Satchmo” and “Pops”, became an American jazz legend in the 1920s. His voice and skill with instruments helped him become a popular musician in a time where America was racially divided. Watch as this skilled musician learns to play, buys his first instrument, and becomes one of the best music makers of the era.