I’ve been meaning to make a list of books by black authors for a while, and with Black History Month upon us and audacity all around us, now seemed as good a time as any. So here are 31 books by black authors to get you through any month of the year, plus one of my favorite quotes from each book and a little bit about it.
Sci-Fi Fantasy
1. Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko
Found family at its finest, and a refreshing, diverse take on fantasy
“No, it isn’t fair. No, we don’t deserve the burdens that our parents gave us. But we can’t defeat monsters that we won’t face.”
2. The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris
A coming-of-age story about a hopeful boy with a horrible gift
“Joy in the face of oppression is its own kind of bravery, but so is sitting in front of the thing that scares you, and not running away.”
3. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
A unique take on King Arthur that blends root magic and history
“But grief isn’t a competition. It’s not an identical pain that we all meet one day when death finds us. It’s a monster, personalized by our love and memories to devour us just so. Grief is suffering, tailored.”
4. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
Beautiful, haunting and terribly wonderful
“This is why she hates Alabaster: not because he is more powerful, not even because he is crazy, but because he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.”
5. War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi
A Futuristic Nigeria with all-too familiar struggles
“It never starts with machetes. It starts with shutting the Igbo out of government. Then it becomes giving all the good jobs to the Hausa and the Fulani and the Yoruba. Then we are accused of crimes we do not commit. Called animals. They say we infest this country. Then we become the reason the Sahara grows larger and more and more of Nigeria turns to desert. We are blamed for the drought. We are blamed for the radiation. Then we are thrown in jail. Then we are murdered.”
6. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
A series with star power and an upcoming movie adaptation
“Courage does not always roar. Valor does not always shine.”
7. Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope
Star-crossed lovers you can really root for
“A stone needs only a trickle of water, unceasing in its focus, to create a groove. If you are the water, take your time to do the work. If you are the stone, best roll out of the way before you are split in two.”
Romance
8. The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest
A sweet romance with a pair of awkward folks
“If moving across an ocean has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes things in life are messy, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth it.”
9. Between Friends and Lovers by Shirlene Obuobi
A romance that is spicy, sassy, and plenty funny
“You can tell a lot about a person by how they react to someone’s truth. Talk to them straight, without all the social niceties, and they’ll let you know sooner rather than later if they’re someone you can trust.”
10. By the Book by Jasmine Guillory
A Beauty And The Beast remix with a tale as old as time
“She knew he was a jerk; she should have just given him some lackluster “we believe in you” nonsense, and then ignored him and eaten as many of Michaela’s delicious fish tacos as she could handle before he told her to go away.”
Historical
11. The Mayor of Maxwell Street by Avery Cunningham
A busybody protagonist with a tenacious spirit and a mystery to solve
“Don’t speak. Be invisible. Jimmy knew what it meant to be invisible. All his life, people made a sincere effort not to see him.”
12. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
An introspective tale with an expansive cast and tons of tangles
“And how she regretted, watching his face locked in grief even as he slept, his lip trembling, that she’d frittered hours away reading about socialists and unions and progressives and politics and corporations, fighting about a meaningless flag that said ‘I’m proud to be an American,’ when it should have said ‘I’m happy to be alive,’ and what the difference was, and how one’s tribe cannot be better than another tribe because they were all one tribe.”
13. The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
A window into the lives of two young ladies during the 1950s
“I turned my fork over on my plate wondering why it was always my responsibility to worry over what grown men might be thinking.”
14. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
A generational story about the Great Diaspora
“Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves.”
15. Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
An unmasking of the horrors of government sterilization through the eyes of a nurse
“Eight of us had been in this together, bound by an oath to help people. Good intentions, we now knew, did not excuse the wounding. Working in the name of the good did not negate the hurt. As long as these injustices continued, all of us were culpable.”
Literary/Women’s Fiction
16. The Niger Wife by Vanessa Walters
An anxious aunt’s search for her missing niece is complicated by the social mores of Nigeria’s high society
“I think it weighs on him. But these men, they will never look inside, do any internal work. It is always left to us women to manage it as best we can.”
17. Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli
An adult coming-of-age about identity and self-actualization
“’I think,’ Anuri told her, ‘I would be more open to immortality if it was my choice.’”
18. The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
A West African girl finds her voice and tells her own story
“My eyes was just watching myself, watching as the picture of schooling that I put on top a table in my heart was falling to the floor and scattering into small, small pieces.”
19. On Rotation by Shirlene Obuobi
A resident wades through clinicals and mixed romantic signals to find her footing
*Because I hated it as a romance and loved it as women’s fiction, this one’s placed where I believe it belongs*
“All this time, I’d assumed that being a doctor meant performing miracles. Fixing bodies. Saving lives. I had hardly considered the flip side of that coin: that it also meant looking a patient’s family in the eye and telling them to say their last goodbyes.”
20. Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah
A wife and mother loses her way and tries to claw her way out of depression to find it
“Somehow she’s found herself in a group full of superwomen who delight in motherhood in all of its facets, their children immaculate and high achieving even as infants, and beside them Efe feels the disparity most acutely, like an anchor pulling her below the waterline.”
21. Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli
A widow grieves
“Grief is not neat. Pain is not dignified. Both are ugly, visceral things.”
Nonfiction
22. The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton
A hopeful account of one man’s journey from death row to freedom
“Despair was a choice. Hatred was a choice. Anger was a choice. I still had choices, and that knowledge rocked me.”
23. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
An account of the Reconstruction Era that is as engaging as it is educational
“I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.”
24. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Letters to a son from his father
“Why are they showing this to us? Why were only our heroes nonviolent? I speak not of the morality of nonviolence, but of the sense that blacks are in especial need of this morality.”
Kids Fiction
Young Adult
25. This Night is Ours by Ronni Davis
A cute romance featuring a budding artist and the choices in front of her
“I’m just a lying liar who lies.”
26. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
A tale of resistance and the realities of standing up versus being quiet
“Sekani doesn’t have to wear his headphones ’cause Momma doesn’t cuss anybody out on the freeway. She hums with gospel songs on the radio and says, ‘Give me strength, Lord. Give me strength.’”
27. Pride by Ibi Zoboi
A remix of Pride and Prejudice set in Brooklyn
“Every book is a different hood, a different country, a different world. Reading is how I visit places and people and ideas.”
Middle Grade
28. Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
A boy’s adventure into the realm of Aesop’s Fables and other black folk tales
“Pain is the body’s way of saying it’s healing, so you gotta let it heal.”
29. From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
A girl’s education on the criminal justice system begins with a letter from her father
“If I’ve learned anything over the years,” Marcus said. “It’s that the way that the world should be and the way it is are two separate things.”
Crime/Horror Fiction
30. All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby
A gritty crime thriller steeped in southern traditions, prejudice, and history
“I ain’t gotta do nothing but stay Black and die, but I want you to have a good meal.”
31. The Changeling by Victor LaValle
A horrific tale with twists and turns set against the backdrop of New York City
“Unsupervised reading is a blessing for a certain kind of child.”
I hope you enjoy my list. There are tons of other books by black authors out there, but I chose these specifically because I’ve read them and can vouch for them. I’ve got plenty of other books on my list, and I may make a post about books I’m looking forward to in the future.
There’s one more black author I’d love for you to try, and that’s me! Check out my debut novel Olawu, a coming-of-age tale of resistance set in 19th century East Africa.
