Black History Month is under way and it is a great time to give the spotlight to black authors. Boston.com asked their readers about their favorite books from black authors and compiled a list of books that everyone should read. Keep reading to find out which 50 books by black authors were chosen by readers as must reads!
The website points out black authors are a small percentage of authors that get their books published by publications. That is despite the fact that many black authors have written many powerful novels over the centuries.
You may think this is an exaggeration but data says otherwise. Between 1984 and 1990, Random House published 512 books. Only two of them were written by black authors. In 2018, a New York Times analysis found out that only 11% of fiction books published by the “big five” were written by people of color.
Seeing Boston.com put forward an article like this and also to ask readers to share their favorite books by black authors is amazing. They could have done only one part of the story but instead chose to go the extra mile and celebrate black authors. You can see the 50 books chosen by readers of Boston.com below!
50 Books by Black Authors Chosen by Readers as Must Reads!
Poetry
- “A Fortune for Your Disaster” and “The Crown Ain’t Worth Much” by Hanif Abdurraqib
Fiction
- “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- “Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned” by Walter Mosley
- “An Untamed State” by Roxane Gay
- “Beloved” by Toni Morrison
- “Brown Girl in the Ring” by Nalo Hopkinson
- “Devil in a Blue Dress” by Walter Mosley
- “The first of many great Easy Rawlins mysteries. I have read all of them.” — R.C., Belmont
- “Dread Nation” by Justina Ireland
- “The Hallelujah Flight” by Phil Bildner
- “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi
- “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison
- “Kindred” by Octavia Butler
- “Legendborn” by Tracy Deonn
- “Meridian” by Alice Walker
- “My Sister, the Serial Killer” by Oyinkan Braithwaite
- “Native Son” by Richard Wright
- “Not Without Laughter” by Langston Hughes
- “Push” by Sapphire
- “Such a Fun Age” by Kiley Reid
- “The Book of Night Women” by Marlon James
- “The Broken Earth” trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
- “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas
- “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas
- “The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
- “The Memory of Love” by Aminatta Forna
- “The Mothers” by Britt Bennett
- “The Trees” by Percival Everett
- “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead
- “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston
- “Yellow Wife” by Sadeqa Johnson
Non-fiction
- “An African in Greenland” by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
- “Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
- “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama
- “Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer” by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot
- “It is a loving, powerful memoir of her remarkable mother.” — Catherine H.
- “Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation” by Candace Owens
- “Gives a glimpse into the conservative side of being Black in America.” — Krysten, North Shore
- “Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood” by Trevor Noah
- “Brothers and Keepers” by John Edgar Wideman
- “How the Word is Passed” by Clint Smith
- “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” by Alice Walker
- “Look out Whitey! Black Power Gon’ Get Your Momma!” by Julius Lester
- “Mules and Men” by Zora Neale Hurston
- “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” by Frederick Douglass
- “Race Matters” by Cornel West
- “The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother” by James McBride
- “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” by Isabel Wilkerson
- “The Quest for Cosmic Justice” by Thomas Sowell
- “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” by Emmanuel Acho
- “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington
- “What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing” by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry
Conclusion
This is a great list and a lot of classics and good reads for everyone. Shoutout to Boston.com for making this list and highlighting these artists. Hopefully, this makes these big publishers hire more black authors and letting us enjoy more books by amazing authors. Happy reading!