by I am a sucker for a good story especially if they evoke some emotions from me. When I start thinking about how many amazing books I have read written by contemporary black authors, the answer is – ALOT.
I would recommend them not because they are black but because they are incredible writers. #BlackLivesMatter
The Hate You Give
Angie Thomas
This amazing book is inspired by #BlackLivesMatter. It is centred around a sixteen-year-old Starr Carter who 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.
The author makes you feel like you are part of the story highlighting racism and violence in America and the changes people are beginning to take due to this.
With The Fire On High
Elizabeth Acevedo
The story revolves around Emoni Santiago’s life who after getting pregnant in freshman year has had to make tough decisions in order to provide for her daughter Abuela.
The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.
Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.
Americannah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
As teenagers in Lagos, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America. There she suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
Thirteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a blogger. But after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?
This is one book I could not put down, I literary read it in three days. It made me believe in love and no matter how hopeless your situation may seem, things can change.
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing tells the story of Jojo. He is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. His mother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is black and her children’s father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she wants to be a better mother, but can’t put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use.
When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly histories of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
‘I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it’s like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again’ Maya Angelou
In this first volume of her seven books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination, violence and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration.
‘She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace . . . She will always be the rainbow in my clouds’ OPRAH WINFREY
My Sister The Serial Killer
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister The Serial Killer is Sunday Times bestseller and The Times #1 bestseller. When Korede’s dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what’s expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel, and a strong stomach.
That’ll be the third boyfriend Ayoola’s dispatched in, quote, self-defense, and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first.
Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede’s long been in love with him, and isn’t prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other…
Becoming
Michelle Obama
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era.
As First Lady of the United States of America – the first African-American to serve in that role –
Michelle Obama helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world.
She dramatically changed the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and stood with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her – from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it – in her own words and on her own terms.
Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi
Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader’s wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel – the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself.
Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portraits, Homegoing is a searing and profound debut from a masterly new writer.
Children of Blood and Bone
Tomi Adeyemi
I loved the beginning of the book but in the middle I kind of lost track of it. Maybe I should have read it with a fresh perspective. It is inspired in the Nigerian setting with all black characters portraying abuse of power and police brutality in the country.
Beloved
Toni Morrison
It is the mid-1800s. At Sweet Home in Kentuckhy, an era is ending as slavery comes under attack from the abolitionists. The worlds of Halle and Paul D. are to be destroyed in a cataclysm of torment and agony. The world of Sethe, however, is to turn from one of love to one of violence and death – the death of Sethe’s baby daughter Beloved, whose name is the single word on the tombstone, who died at her mother’s hands, and who will return to claim retribution.
The Color Purple
Alice Walker
In the early 20th century, Cecile and Nettie are separated as young girls but manage to sustain their relationship though time. The story pans through 20 years on exchanging letter and maintain their relationship.
Alice Walker bravely speaks of sexual and domestic abuse and the pain and struggles women go through. Gradually Celie discovers the support of women that enables her to leave the past behind and begin a new life.
