For the Conscious Reader 150 Black Authors organized into genre.
“Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.” ― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I’ve explained in my previous posts, (here, and here) that I’m going to be more intentional about the books I read. So I wanted to take the time to share my journey with you guys. I’ve begun this journey by google searching “books by black authors.”
Please note: This is only the beginning, I intend to network and connect with lesser known authors as well. Moving on.
I want to read books from individuals whose voices need to be heard and understood, in order create social change. I want to keep a forward momentum on all of our efforts. I do believe that right the internet is a great place to create social change. It can allow people to search up topics without judgement. We just have to make the topics visible to everyone. Also, I have learned mostly as an author, that reading books helps me to notice similarities I have with the others, whether it be the author or the characters. I love that feeling when I’m reading and I’m like “Oh, they thought of that too!”
Ok, I won’t make you wait any longer, here is the list of lists of black authors from reliable sources.
Oprah Magazine- 44 Books by Black Authors
Ideas.Ted.Com- 62 books by Black authors recommended by Ted Speakers
Penguin Random House- 33 Books by Contemporary Black Authors
KPBS.org- 6 Books By Black Authors To Put On Your Summer Reading List
PBS.org- 10 Black Authors Everyone Should Read
BuzzFeed- 42 Amazing Books Written By Black Authors
Good Housekeeping- 25 Books By Black Authors to Add to Your Reading List
Some the Wiser- My Favorite Contemporary Fiction by Black Authors
Here they are by genre
Fiction is in Alphabet order by title and Non Fiction is in alphabet order by last name.
Fiction
Adventure
The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Fairytale
What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
Fiction
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
If I Stay Right Here: A Novel by Chwayita Ngamlana
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Domestic
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Another Brooklyn: A Novel by Jacqueline Woodson
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
It’s Not All Downhill from Here by Terry McMillan
Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes
On Beauty: A Novel by Zadie Smith
Drama
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Literary
A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley
Five-Carat Soul by James McBride
Grand Union by Zadie Smith
Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Uncle Tom’s Children A Novella by Richard Wright
What We Lose by zinzi clemmons
Mystery
Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley
Autobiographical
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Coming of Age
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Romance
I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan
Indigo by Beverly Jenkins
Waiting To Exhale by Terry McMillan
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa
Fantasy
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
Psychological
Another Country by James Baldwin
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Erotic
Finding Gideon by Eric Jerome Dickey
Historical Fiction
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Deacon King Kong: A Novel by James McBride
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Loving Day by Mat Johnson
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Travelers by Regina Porter
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Vanishing Half by Brit BennettThe Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Magical Realism
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
Young Adult
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Thriller
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Gay/Lesbian/LGBTQ
Lot: Stories by Bryan Washington
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Satire
We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Sci-Fi
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Version Control by Dexter Palmer
True Crime
A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa by Alexis Okeowo
Poetry
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow was Enuf: a choreopoem by Ntozake Shange
Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy
Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Take This Stallion by Anaïs Duplan
Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth by Warsan Shire
salt. by Nayyirah Waheed
Non Fiction
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think and Do by Jennifer Eberhardt
The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race by Melanye Price
Autobiography/Memoir/Biography
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelo
The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell by W. Kamau Bell
Black Is the Body by Emily Bernard
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittany Cooper
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
The Well-Read Black Girl An Anthology by Glory Edim
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
The Autobiography of Malcom X by Alex Haley
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
Some of Us Did NOT Die by June Jordan
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
Lovesong: Becoming a Jew by Julius Lester
The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir by Jennifer Lewis
Unbowed by Wangari Maathai
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America by Gregory Pardlo
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson
Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America by Sharon Robinson
Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death and Redemption in an American Prison by Shaka Senghor
Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space by Margot Lee Shetterly
Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays by R. Eric Thomas
We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True by Gabrielle Union
The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
More Than Enough by Elaine Welteroth
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Manifesto
Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less by Tiffany Dufu
Christian Literature
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
Self-Help
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think and Do by Jennifer Eberhardt
The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music by Victor Wooten
Thesis/Law
The New Jim Crowby Michelle Alexander
Essays
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Women, Race, And Class by Angela Y. Davis
Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
Reference
Soar: How Boys Learn, Succeed, and Develop Character by David C. Banks
Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Change by Stacey Abrams
Not sure what genre
A Human Being Died That Night: Confronting Apartheid’s Chief Killer by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
End of List
Save the page and make it a 2021 challenge, or just save it for future reference.
Please feel free to contact me in order to add your favorite black authors to the list. (Fingers crossed I’ll be added soon.)
