Speculative fiction has long been a temperature check for hot button issues both in America and abroad. Sci-fi, fantasy, and dystopian novels grasp at the anxieties of the day with an urgency that can only come from their unique structure. In his debut novel, Chain Gang All Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah imagines a future in… Continue reading Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Tag: booksbyblackwriters
Post-Traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson
Chantal V. Johnson’s debut novel, Post-Traumatic, offers a unique version of of the very en vogue trauma plot. The trauma plot entered the literary vernacular recently with literary critic Parul Sehgal’s piece, The Case Against the Trauma Plot, which posits that writers have become overly dependent on using a traumatic backstory to prop up an… Continue reading Post-Traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson
The Trees by Percival Everrett
It is the rare novel that can strike a delicate balance between satire and violence, a feat achieved by the celebrated writer Percival Everrett in his most recent book, The Trees. Perhaps Everrett is one of the only writers working today who could manage to make a book reckoning with the history of lynching in… Continue reading The Trees by Percival Everrett
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Marketed as “The Devil Wears Prada meets Get Out,” Zakiya Dalila Harris’ new thriller novel, The Other Black Girl, has been one of the publishing industry’s most talked-about and buzziest releases of 2021. Harris, who quit her job as an editorial assistant at the revered PRH imprint Knopf to write this book, has endeavored to… Continue reading The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Transcendent Kingdom is the second novel by Yaa Gyasi, who burst onto the scene a couple of years ago with her brilliant and celebrated historical fiction novel, Homegoing, which followed several generations of a Ghanian family experiencing slavery in Europe and America. Gyaasi’s sophomore novel has a narrower focus than Homegoing, which spanned decades and… Continue reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Luster by Raven Leilani
Purchase a copy for yourself here! In an essay written for Vogue about her departure from her mother’s strict Seventh Day Adventist church, Raven Leilani writes, “It would take years for the questions to develop and still more time for me to admit that I had them: How could an omniscient being create animals capable… Continue reading Luster by Raven Leilani
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Purchase a copy for yourself here! “You feel you are creeping up over the edge of a precipice and that this cliff beckons you; worse… that there is no way to stop that fall because you are the precipice”, writes Tsitsi Dangarembga in This Mournable Body, the final entry in her trilogy surrounding the life… Continue reading This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Lot by Bryan Washington
Purchase a copy for yourself here! “Houston is molting. The city sheds all over the concrete”, writes Bryan Washington in his award-winning story collection, Lot, an exploration of one of America’s most fascinating metropolises and the characters that inhabit it. Around half of the stories in the collection are told from the perspective of Nicolás,… Continue reading Lot by Bryan Washington
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
Purchase a copy for yourself here! “Hood feminism is lived feminism. It’s the women who do the work, who are present in communities and making sure that their kids have school and at least somewhat accessible medical care. It’s great to want to be a CEO or to be president, but you should also probably… Continue reading Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Britt Bennett’s recent novel, The Vanishing Half, deals in multiplicative identities. The Vanishing Half is Bennett’s follow up to her debut novel, The Mothers (Read my review here), which similarly dwells on how explosive secrets can tear families and communities asunder. The novel begins with sixteen-year old twins, Desiree… Continue reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett