Black Studies: Fiction, 21st Century

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child.

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi "Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe. Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl; Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy; but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are. For one thing, they share a gold-painted, seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. And then there's the gingerbread they make. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it's very popular in Druhástrana, the far-away (or, according to many sources, non-existent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth. The world's truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread, however, is Harriet's charismatic childhood friend Gretel Kercheval--a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything (good or bad) that has happened to Harriet since they met. Decades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story. As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy, ambition, family grudges, work, wealth, and real estate, gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value"

Travelers by Helon Habila Accompanying his wife on a prestigious arts fellowship in Berlin, a Nigerian scholar finds there are no walls between his privileged, secure existence and the stories of other Africans on the move.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy for "physical, intellectual and moral training". In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors with the sadistic staff. Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you."

When the Plums Are Ripe by Patrice Nganang; Amy Baram Reid (Translator) The second volume in a magisterial trilogy, the story of Cameroon caught between empires during World War II

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Conjugating Hindi by Ishmael Reed California is still the world's biggest hideout. The only thing more western is the Pacific Ocean, where, if the Big One happens, California might find a home at the bottom.

Let's Talk about Love by Claire Kann Alice's last girlfriend, Margo, ended things when Alice confessed she's asexual. Alice is sure she's done with dating and then she meets Takumi. She can't stop thinking about him or the rom-com-grade romance feelings she did not ask for. When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library-employee badge, Alice has to decide if she's willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated-- or understood.

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan Washington Black is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born. When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or "Titch," is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist. When a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him.

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah This "debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home.

A Lucky Man: Stories by Jamel Brinkley Jamel Brinkley's stories, in a debut that announces the arrival of a significant new voice, reflect the tenderness and vulnerability of black men and boys whose hopes sometimes betray them, especially in a world shaped by race, gender, and class--where luck may be the greatest fiction of all.

To Funk and Die in LA by Nelson George When his grandfather is shot dead in a drive-by, D. Hunter discovers his businessman grandfather was involved with a legendary musician, Dr. Funk.

Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she's high. Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man.

Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell Since I Laid My Burden Down has a fearless (sometimes reckless) humor as Brontez Purnell interrogates what it means to be black, male, queer; a son, an uncle, a lover; Southern, punk, and human. An emotional tightrope walk of a book and an important American story rarely, if ever, told.

American Street by Ibi Zoboi

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay Gay returns with Difficult Women, a collection of stories of rare force and beauty, of hardscrabble lives, passionate loves, and quirky and vexed human connection. The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail.

Five-Carat Soul: Stories by James McBride An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens. Five strangers find themselves thrown together and face unexpected judgment. An American president draws inspiration from a conversation he overhears in a stable. And members of The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band recount stories from their own messy and hilarious lives.

Halsey Street by Naima Coster Penelope Grand has scrapped her failed career as an artist in Pittsburgh and moved back to Brooklyn to keep an eye on her ailing father. She's accepted that her future won't be what she'd dreamed, but now, as gentrification has completely reshaped her old neighborhood, even her past is unrecognizable. When Penelope moves into the attic apartment of the affluent Harpers, she thinks she's found a semblance of family, and maybe even love.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 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.

Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger by Brontez Purnell Recounts the life of an artist and "old school homosexual" who bears a big resemblance to author Brontez Purnell. Our hero doesn't trust the new breed of fags taking over San Francisco, though. They wear bicycle helmets, seat belts, and condoms. Meanwhile, he sabotages his relationships, hallucinating affection while cruising in late night parks, bath-houses, and other nooks and crannies of a newly-conservative, ruined city.

Mount Pleasant: A Novel by Patrice Nganang; Amy Baram Reid (Translator) A sweeping tale of modern Cameroon exploring issues of colonialism, racial passing, and the power of the stories that we tell.

Period Pain by Kopano Matlwa In Period Pain Matlwa has poignantly captured the heartache and confusion of so many South Africans who feel defeated by the litany of headline horrors: xenophobia, corrective rape, corruption and crime and for many the death sentence that is the public health nightmare. Through this story we are able to reflect, to question and to rediscover our humanity.

The Sellout: A Novel by Paul Beatty; Elizabeth Bruce (Editor) 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.

Homegoing: A Novel by Yaa Gyasi Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and--with outstanding economy and force--captures the troubled spirit of our own nation

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon Two teens--Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica--cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love.

Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney Jed--young, gay, black, out of rehab and out of prospects in his hometown--flees to the city of his fantasies, Berlin. The paradise that tyranny created, the subsidized city isolated behind the Berlin Wall, is where he's chosen to become the figure that he so admires, the black American expatriate. Newly sober and nostalgic for the Weimar days of Isherwood and Auden, Jed arrives to chase boys and to escape from what it means to be a black male in America.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the U.S. to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. Working as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers, he displays the punctuality, discretion, and loyalty that Edwards demands. Neni's temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons means a brighter future--until Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers' façades.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from North West London to West Africa. Two brown girls dream of being dancers--but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson For August, running into an old friend transports her to a time and a place she thought she had mislaid: 1970s Brooklyn, where friendship was everything. August and friends shared confidences as they ambled their neighborhood streets. But beneath the hopeful promise there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls, where mothers disappeared, where fathers found religion, and where madness was a mere sunset away.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement.

And after Many Days by Jowhor Ile A novel about a boy who goes missing, a family that is torn apart, and a nation on the brink. During the rainy season of 1995, in the bustling town of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, one family's life is disrupted by the sudden disappearance of seventeen-year-old Paul Utu, beloved brother and son. As they grapple with the sudden loss of their darling boy, they embark on a painful and moving journey which changes their lives forever and shatters the fragile ecosystem of their once ordered family.

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy The Turner children are called home to decide their childhood home's fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts and shapes their family's future. Praised by Ayana Mathis as utterly moving and un-putdownable, The Turner House brings us a colorful, complicated brood full of love and pride, sacrifice and unlikely inheritances. It's a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home.

Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John In the far reaches of northwestern Nigeria, Dantala lives among a gang of street boys that are paid by the Small Party to cause trouble during the election. When their attempt to burn down the opposition's headquarters ends in disaster, Dantala must run for his life, leaving his best friend behind.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Their first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens.

We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge The Freeman family--Charles, Laurel, and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie--have been invited to the Toneybee Institute in rural Massachusetts to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. The Freemans were selected for the experiment because they know sign language; they are supposed to teach it to Charlie and welcome him as a member of their family.

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours: Stories by Helen Oyeyemi The stories collected here are linked by more than the exquisitely winding prose of their creator: Helen Oyeyemi's ensemble cast of characters slip from the pages of their own stories only to surface in another. The reader is invited into a world of lost libraries and locked gardens, of marshlands where the drowned dead live and a city where all the clocks have stopped and students hone their skills at puppet school.

All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones The collection of stories centers on African-Americans in Washington D.C. during the 20th century.

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu It's the '70s, and one impoverished, African-American Washington, D.C. neighborhood is undergoing big changes. In the mix is Ethiopian grocery owner Sepha --a man with a complex past who fled his homeland after seeing his father beaten to death in the Ethiopian Revolution, 17 years earlier. Eventually, he begins to assemble a group of people who resemble a community, but once again his "family" is threatened, this time by a series of racially charged incidents.

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James Lilith was born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they--and she--will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans.

The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat A scarred Brooklyn resident remembers his past life as a Haitian torturer in the 1960s, a period during which he waged personal and political battles before moving to New York, where his past continues to haunt him.

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson When a new, white student nicknamed "The Jesus Boy" joins her sixth grade class in the winter of 1971, Frannie's growing friendship with him makes her start to see some things in a new light.

Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy Spans countries and centuries, exploring questions of race and identity with humor and a freshness.

God Says No by James Hannaham Gary Gray marries his first girlfriend, a fellow student from Central Florida Christian College who loves Disney World as much as he does. They are nineteen years old, God-fearing, and eager to start a family, but a week before their wedding Gary goes into a waffle house bathroom and lets something happen. God says no is his testimony--the story of a young Black Christian struggling with desire and belief, with his love for his wife and his appetite for other men, told in a singular, soulful voice.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Re-creates the 1960s struggle of Biafra to establish an independent republic in Nigeria, following the intertwined lives of the characters through a military coup, the Biafran secession, and the resulting civil war. Adichie weaves together the lives of five characters caught up in the extraordinary tumult of the decade.

Holding Pattern by Jeffery Renard Allen; Jeffery R. Allen Allen melds gritty urban life and magical realism in his first collection (after the novel Rails Under My Back). At times, the combination works-in the title story, full of contemporary slang, a character grows wings, but instead of ethereal white feathers, they are dried up and brown and crusty, like some fried chicken wings.

The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi Jessamy "Jess" Harrison is a young girl. Possessed of an extraordinary imagination, she has a hard time fitting in at school. When she visits Nigeria for the first time that she makes a friend who understands her: TillyTilly. But soon TillyTilly's visits become more disturbing, until Jess realizes she doesn't know who her friend is at all. Drawing on Nigerian mythology, Helen Oyeyemi presents a striking variation on the theme of doubles.

Lost in the City: Stories by Edward P. Jones Contains fourteen short fiction stories by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward P. Jones about the lives of African-American men and women struggling to survive in Washington, D.C.

Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas A novel about a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American dream.

A Mercy by Toni Morrison In exchange for a bad debt, an Anglo-Dutch trader takes on Florens, a young slave girl, who feels abandoned by her slave mother and who searches for love--first from an older servant woman at her master's new home, and then from a handsome free blacksmith.

Murambi, the Book of Bones by Boubacar Boris Diop; Fiona MC Laughlin (Translator) In April of 1994, nearly a million Rwandans were killed in what would prove to be one of the swiftest, most terrifying killing sprees of the 20th century. In Murambi, The Book of Bones, Boubacar Boris Diop comes face to face with the chilling horror and overwhelming sadness of the tragedy.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists.

The Prophet of Zongo Street: Stories by Mohammed Naseehu Ali '95 : The story of day and night -- The prophet of Zongo Street -- Live-in -- Manhood test -- The true Aryan -- Ward G4 -- Rachmaninov -- Mallam Sile -- Faith -- Man pass man.

Push Comes to Shove by Wesley Brown Brown's novel takes readers back to the Vietnam Era, when fear mixed with freedom to create a time unlike any other in US history. Brown's brilliant, sweeping novel of activism and violence reminds us that years of struggle and personal sacrifice led the way from the Civil Rights Movement to the first black U.S. President.

Say You're One of Them: Stories by Uwem Akpan Five stories, each set in a different African country: An ex-mas feast -- Fattening for Gabon -- What language is that? -- Luxurious hearses -- My parents' bedroom

Small Island by Andrea Levy Hortense, Queenie, Gilbert and Bernard each narrate from each of their points of view. Its main plot is set in 1948 and focuses on the diaspora of Jamaican immigrants, who, escaping economic hardship on their own "small island," move to England, the Mother Country, for which the men have fought during World War II.

Song Yet Sung by James McBride A tale set against a backdrop of slave rights conflicts in the nineteenth-century Chesapeake Bay region finds young runaway Liz Spocott inadvertently inspiring a slave breakout from the attic prison of a notorious slave thief.

Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate Three generations of African-American women--Tamara, her mother Angela, and her grandmother Mildred--find their lives and destinies linked across time by the power and influence of the movies, from the 1920s to the present day.

The Whale Caller by Zakes Mda As Zakes Mda's fifth novel opens, the seaside village of Hermanus is overrun with whale-watchers--foreign tourists determined to see whales in their natural habitat. But when the tourists have gone home, the whale caller lingers at the shoreline, wooing a whale he has named Sharisha with cries from a kelp horn.

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu An unforgettable love story about a searing affair between an American woman and an African man in 1970s America and an unflinching novel about the fragmentation of lives that straddle countries and histories. All Our Names is the story of two young men who come of age during an African revolution, drawn from the safe confines of the university campus into the intensifying clamor of the streets outside.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie One of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home. As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu--beautiful, self-assured--departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze--the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor--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. Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion--for their homeland and for each other--they will face the toughest decisions of their lives. Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's most powerful and astonishing novel yet.

Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe Arrows of Rain dramatizes the relationship between an individual and the modern African state. Okey Ndibe examines the erosion of moral insight in both public and private life, drawing out the complex factors behind the near-collapse of a nation.

Blackass: A Novel by A. Igoni Barrett Furo Wariboko wakes on the morning of a job interview to discover he's turned into a white man: red hair, green eyes, pale skin. In this condition he plunges into the bustle of Lagos to make his fortune. Pursued from the streets to the boardroom by those who would use him, Furo hides the evidence of his former life ... as he reinvents himself.

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi The Snow White fairy tale brilliantly recast as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity. Boy Novak marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she'd become, but elements of the familiar tale of play themselves out when the birth of Boy's daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson A fantasy novel of urban decay whose heroine turns to Afro-Caribbean magic to help a boyfriend escape gangs. The gangs are enforcing a contract to produce a human heart for transplant, even if the boyfriend has to kill for it. The setting is a futuristic Toronto.

The Cutting Season by Attica Locke Locke returns with The Cutting Season, a second novel easily as gripping and powerful as her first—a heart-pounding thriller that interweaves two murder mysteries, one on Belle Vie, a historic landmark in the middle of Lousiana’s Sugar Cane country, and one involving a slave gone missing more than one hundred years earlier.

Delicious Foods by James Hannaham Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs, and quickly forms an addiction. One day she disappears without a trace. Unbeknownst to eleven-year-old Eddie, now left behind in a panic-stricken search for her, Darlene has been lured away with false promises of a good job and a rosy life.

The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle Pepper is a rambunctious big man, and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He's not mentally ill, but that doesn't seem to matter. On his first night, he's visited by a terrifying creature who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It's no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down.

Disgruntled by Asali Solomon An elegant, vibrant, startling coming-of-age novel, for anyone who's ever felt the shame of being alive Kenya Curtis is only eight years old, but she knows that she's different, even if she can't put her finger on how or why. It's not because she's Black--most of the other students in the fourth-grade class at her West Philadelphia elementary school are too. Maybe it's because she celebrates Kwanzaa, or because she's forbidden from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor A novel that opens with a young man's murder on the day of the tumultuous 2007 election in Kenya, but then goes into the history of his family and of the splintered African nation around them--in scenes stretching back to a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s.

Every Day Is for the Thief by Teju Cole Visiting Lagos after many years away, Teju Cole's unnamed narrator rediscovers his hometown as both a foreigner and a local. A young writer uncertain of what he wants to say, the man moves through tableaus of life in one of the most dynamic cities in the world: he hears the muezzin's call to prayer in the early morning light, and listens to John Coltrane during the late afternoon heat.

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma Told from the point of view of nine-year-old Benjamin, the youngest of four brothers, The Fishermen is the Cain and Abel-esque story of an unforgettable childhood in 1990s Nigeria, in the small town of Akure. When their strict father has to travel to a distant city for work, the brothers take advantage of his extended absence to skip school and go fishing. At the ominous, forbidden nearby river, they meet a dangerous local madman.

Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe Foreign Gods, Inc., tells the story of Ike, a New York-based Nigerian cab driver who sets out to steal the statue of an ancient war deity from his home village and sell it to a New York gallery. Ike's plan is fueled by desperation. Despite a degree in economics from a major American college, his strong accent has barred him from the corporate world.

From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate by Nathaniel Mackey A lifelong epistolary novel that unfolds through N.'s intimate letters to the mysterious Angel of Dust. Unexpected, profound happenings occur as N. delves into music and art and the goings-on of his transmorphic Los Angeles-based jazz ensemble, in which he is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. The story opens in July 1978 with a dream of a haunting Archie Shepp solo, and closes in September 1982 on a glass-bottomed boat borne aloft by the music.

Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi A renowned surgeon and failed husband, Kweku Sai succumbs suddenly at dawn outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of Kweku's death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family he abandoned years before. In the wake of Kweku's death, the family gathers in Ghana, at their mother, Fola's, new home. The eldest son and his new wife; the mysterious, beautiful twins; their baby sister, now a young woman -- all come together, each carrying secrets of his own.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow After a family tragedy orphans her, Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., moves into her grandmother's mostly black community in the 1980s, where she must swallow her grief and confront her identity as a biracial woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

God Help the Child: A Novel by Toni Morrison A tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love.

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride Fleeing his violent master at the side of abolitionist John Brown at the height of the slavery debate in mid-nineteenth-century Kansas Territory, Henry pretends to be a girl to hide his identity throughout the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. National Book Award for Fiction, 2013.

The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna Englishwoman, Laura, and her two children who renovate a farmhouse in Croatia with the help of local handyman, Duro and the revealing of the recent history of the area.

Home by Toni Morrison When Frank Money joined the army to escape his too-small world, he left behind his cherished and fragile little sister, Cee. After the war, his shattered life has no purpose until he hears that Cee is in danger. Frank is a modern Odysseus returning to a 1950s America mined with lethal pitfalls for an unwary black man.

How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu Leaving behind his marriage and job in New York, Jonas, the son of Ethiopian immigrants, sets out to retrace his mother and father's trip and weave together a family history that will take him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to his life in the America of today.

John Crow's Devil by Marlon James In the village of Gibbeah-- where certain women fly and certain men protect secrets with their lives-- magic coexists with religion, and good and evil are never as they seem. In this town, a battle is fought between two men of God. The story begins when a drunkard named Hector Bligh (the "Rum Preacher") is dragged from his pulpit by a man calling himself "Apostle" York. Handsome and brash, York demands a fire-and-brimstone church, but sets in motion a phenomenal and deadly struggle for the soul of Gibbeah himself.

Juice! by Ishmael Reed A cartoonist who struggles with censorship and being diagnosed with diabetes--brought on by consuming too much junk food while sitting in front of the television--becomes fixated on the media coverage of the infamous trial of O.J. Simpson, its aftermath, and the impact it had on racism in American culture and politics.

The Kid by Sapphire bdul Jones is nine years old when his mother Precious dies. Parentless, he is sent first to a foster home and then to a Catholic orphanage. But the priests charged to care for him abuse his trust terribly. And Abdul, a victim, finds that he reacts in the most frightening way imaginable.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica, July lives with her mother until a recently transplanted English widow decides to move her into the great house and rename her. She remains bound to the plantation despite her "freedom." The arrival of a young English overseer dramatically changes life in the great house.

The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna The experiences of three men in Sierra Leone.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently.

NW by Zadie Smith Four Londoners--Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan--try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end.

Open City: A Novel by Teju Cole Teju Cole's Open City is a profound work by an important new author who has much to say about our country and our world. Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor named Julius wanders, reflecting on his relationships, his recent breakup with his girlfriend, his present, his past. He encounters people from different cultures and classes who will provide insight on his journey--which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and into the most unrecognizable facets of his own soul.

The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi Maja, daughter of a black Cuban couple, was only five years old when the family emigrated to London. Growing up, she speaks Spanish and English, but longs for a connection to her African roots. Now in her early twenties, Maja is haunted by the desire to make sense of the threads of her history; meanwhile, her mother has found comfort in Santería--a faith that melds Catholic saints and the Yoruba gods of West African religion.

Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga; Melanie Mauthner (Translator) Mukasonga immerses us in a school for young girls, called "Notre-Dame du Nil." The girls are sent to this high school perched on the ridge of the Nile in order to become the feminine elite of the country and to escape the dangers of the outside world. The book is a prelude to the Rwandan genocide and unfolds behind the closed doors of the school, in the interminable rainy season.

Plot Against Hip Hop by Nelson George The Plot Against Hip Hop is a noir novel set in the world of hip hop culture. The stabbing murder of esteemed music critic Dwayne Robinson in a Soho office building is dismissed by the NYPD as a gang initiation. But his old friend, bodyguard and security expert D Hunter, suspects there are larger forces at work.

Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah At the center of Radiance of Tomorrow are Benjamin and Bockarie, two longtime friends who return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. Benjamin and Bockarie try to forge a new community by taking up their former posts as teachers, but they're beset by obstacles. As Benjamin and Bockarie search for a way to restore order, they're forced to reckon with the uncertainty of their past and future alike.

Rails under My Back by Jeffery Renard Allen Rails Under My Back is an epic that tracks the interwoven lives of two brothers, Lucius and John Jones, who are married to two sisters, Gracie and Sheila McShan. For them, their parents, and their children, life is always full of departures; someone is always fleeing town and leaving the remaining family to suffer the often dramatic, sometimes tragic consequences.

The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson Mitchell S. Jackson grew up black in a neglected neighborhood in America's whitest city, Portland, Oregon. In the '90s, those streets and beyond had fallen under the shadow of crack cocaine and its familiar mayhem. In his commanding autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in that time and place, with a break-out voice that's nothing less than extraordinary.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward Enduring a hardscrabble existence as the children of alcoholic and absent parents, four siblings from a coastal Mississippi town prepare their meager stores for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina while struggling with such challenges as a teen pregnancy and a dying litter of prize pups

Song of the Shank by Jeffery Renard Allen (Editor) In 1866 as Tom and his guardian, Eliza Bethune, struggle to adjust to their fashionable apartment in the city in the aftermath of riots that had driven them away a few years before. But soon a stranger arrives from the mysterious island of Edgemere, inhabited solely by African settlers and black refugees from the war and riots, who intends to reunite Tom with his now-liberated mother.

Spilt Milk by Kopano Matlwa A story of two passionate people who share a shameful past and a tenuous present, this remarkable narrative follows headmistress Mohumagadi -- of the elite Sekolo sa Ditlhora school for talented black children -- and Father Bill, a disgraced preacher, as they are brought together again decades after a childhood love affair expelled them from their communities.

Team Seven by Marcus Burke Andre Battel, a native of Milton, south of Boston, gradually grows away from his Jamaican family, discovers genuine prowess on the basketball court, and eventually falls into dealing drugs for the local street gang. But when Andre and his crew fall behind on their payments, dire and violent consequences await.

The Thing Around Your Neck: Stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie A collection of twelve stories includes the tale of a medical student in hiding with a poor Muslim woman, and a woman who discovers a devastating secret about her brother's death.

Time of the Locust by Morowa Yejide A novel about an autistic boy whose drawings represent something much deeper than even the doctors who study can grasp; his father, serving 25 to life for murder; his mother, trying to hold herself together and fix her broken child. It's a supernatural journey of crime and punishment, retribution and redemption that ultimately leads to a father saving his son, a mother connecting with her child, and an American family reclaiming itself.

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay Mireille Duval Jameson is a rich and self-assured Haitian woman who is kidnapped by a gang of heavily armed men. Held captive by a man who calls himself the Commander, Mireille must endure his torment until her unwilling father pays up.

Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson Born and raised in the heart of old Dixie, D'aron Davenport finds himself in unfamiliar territory his freshman year at UC Berkeley. Two thousand miles and a world away from his childhood, he is a small-town fish floundering in the depths of a large, hyper-liberal pond. Caught between the prosaic values of his rural hometown and the intellectualized multicultural cosmopolitanism of Berzerkeley, the nineteen-year-old white kid is uncertain about his place until one disastrous party brings him three idiosyncratic best friends.

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo Follows ten-year-old Zimbabwe native, Darling, as she escapes the closed schools and paramilitary police control of her homeland in search of opportunity and freedom with an aunt in America.

White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi As a child, Miranda Silver developed pica, a rare eating disorder that causes its victims to consume nonedible substances. The death of her mother when Miranda is sixteen exacerbates her condition; nothing, however, satisfies a strange hunger. And then there's the family house in Dover, England, converted to a bed-and-breakfast by Miranda's father, a house that manifests a more conscious malice toward strangers.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead Mark Spitz and his squad of three "sweepers" move through Zone One of lower Manhattan, a walled-off enclave scheduled for resettlement in the aftermath of a zombie plague. The great masses of the undead have been violently dispatched by a Marine detachment. It falls to Spitz and his fellows to take care of the handful that remain, as well as a second-tier of the infected known as "stragglers".

The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. A small blip in a huge worldwide network of desire, his business is to hunt for names on paper, collect them, sell them, and occasionally fake them, all to give the people what they want: a little piece of Fame. But what does Alex want?

Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood Black Girl in Paris wends its way around the mythology or Paris as a city that has called out to African-American artists. Like James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Josephine Baker before her, Youngblood's heroine leaves her home, in the American South, nurturing a dream of finding artistic emancipation in the City of Light.

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany Bellona is a city at the dead center of the United States. The population has fled. Madmen and criminals wander the streets. Strange portents appear in the cloud-covered sky. Into this disaster zone comes a young man-poet, love, and adventurer known only as the Kid.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories by Z. Z. Packer Packer "forms a constellation of young black experience"* whether she's writing from the perspective of a church-going black woman who has a crisis in faith, a young college student at Yale, or a young black man unwillingly accompanying his father to the Million Man March.

The Ecstatic, or, Homunculus: a Novel by Victor LaValle Anthony James weighs 315 pounds, is possibly schizophrenic, and he's just been kicked out of college. He's rescued by his mother, sister, and grandmother, but they may not be altogether sane themselves. Living in the basement of their home in Queens, New York, Anthony is armed with nothing but wicked sarcasm and a few well-cut suits.

Forged by Fire by Sharon M. Draper Teenage Gerald, who has spent years protecting his fragile half-sister from their abusive father, faces the prospect of one final confrontation before the problem can be solved.

Grand Canyon, Inc by Percival L. Everett Tanner, call him Rhino Tanner, his friends do because theyre afraid of him. Hes a self made man who makes his living killing large game in Africa -- a dysfunctional Horatio Alger who sets his sights and sites on the worlds greatest natural wonder The Grand Canyon. But in doing so, Tanner unleashes forces that he cannot comprehend and cannot control his idealistic son Niko, Native American holy men, Zen adepts and, yes, Mother Nature.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson After meeting at their private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people's reactions

In Arcadia by Ben Okri A lyrical novel about art and enlightenment that takes the reader from Waterloo Station in London to Paris and a four hundred year old enigma, the painting by Nicolas Poussin known as 'Et in Arcadia Ego'.

John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead Whitehead's new novel is on one level a multifaceted retelling of the story of John Henry, the black steel-driver who died outracing a machine designed to replace him. On another level it's the story of a disaffected, middle-aged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival. It is also a high-velocity thrill ride through the tunnel where American legend gives way to American pop culture.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones When a plantation proprietor and former slave--now possessing slaves of his own--dies, his household falls apart in the wake of a slave rebellion and corrupt underpaid patrollers who enable free black people to be sold into slavery.

Love by Toni Morrison The epitome of a group of women's ideals about love, fatherhood, and friendship, wealthy hotel owner Bill Cosey finds his life compromised by his troubled past and his feelings about a spellbinding woman named Celestial.

The Madonna of Excelsior by Zakes Mda A novel takes readers deep into the heart of apartheid in the early 1970s, focusing on a mixed race family that is trying to survive on the closely regulated line between black and white.

Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid Antigua comes vibrantly to life under the gaze of Mr. Potter, an illiterate taxi chauffeur who makes his living along the wide, open roads that pass the only towns he has ever seen and the graveyard where he will be buried. The sun shines squarely overhead, the ocean lies on every side, and suppressed passion fills the air. Misery infects the unstudied, slow pace of this island and of Mr. Potter's days.

One Woman Short by Nelson George When Rodney Hampton's best friend's marriage shakes his complacent bachelor lifestyle, Rodney sets out to make one of three former girlfriends that slipped away his wife.

The Polished Hoe: A Novel by Austin Clarke

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie In the city of Egunu, Nigeria, fifteen year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a somewhat cloistered life. Their father is a wealthy businessman, they live in a beautiful home, and attend private school. But, through Kambili's eyes, we see that their home life is anything but harmonious. Her father, a fanatically religious man has impossible expectations of his children and his wife, and if things don't go his way he becomes physically abusive.

The Queen of Harlem by Brian Keith Jackson Mason Randolph, a Southern black preppie on his way to Stanford Law School, changes his name to Malik and moves to Harlem.

Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson

Talk Stories by Jamaica Kincaid West Indian weekend -- Daytime dancing, a report -- The magic is blue -- A commercial party -- Time with Pryor -- Bells and drells -- Lunchtime -- Free-ee-ee -- Junior Miss and more.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith White Teeth focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends—the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and the Englishman Archie Jones—and their families in London. The novel is centred around Britain's relationships with people from formerly colonised countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.