Literary Criticism

#26 on The Guardian's list of 100 best nonfiction books of all time, the essays explore what it means to be Black in America In an age of Black Lives Matter, James Baldwin's essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and African Americans...

This omnibus edition collects celebrated poet and activist Nikki Giovanni's adult prose: Racism 101, Sacred Cows and Other Edibles and seven (7) selections from Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being a Black...

From the acclaimed bestselling author of the Easy Rawlins series, deemed "one of America's best mystery writers" (The New York Times Book Review), comes a tale about a murdered man who does not want to go to heaven or hell--he'd rather have his old life...

"Black women writers and critics are acting on the old adage that one must speak for oneself if one wishes to be heard." --Claudia Tate, from the introduction   Long out-of-print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black...

Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase read until you understand, a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the...

Ranging from Ta-Nehisi Coates's case for reparations to Toni Morrison's revolutionary humanism to D'Angelo's simmering blend of R&B and racial justice, Jesse McCarthy's bracing essays investigate with virtuosic intensity the art, music, literature, and...

In an age of Black Lives Matter, James Baldwin's essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and African Americans abroad are as powerful today as when they were first written. With documentaries like I Am Not Your Negro bringing renewed...

Easy finally believes he can lead a simple life and leave his haunted past behind him--until he meets a woman who changes everything. November 1963: Easy's settled into a steady gig as a school custodian. It's a quiet, simple existence--but a few moments...

A magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with each other, over the course of the country's history...

One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves "The...

CARNEGIE MEDAL FINALIST - A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - From "one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings) comes a memoir "as electric as...

Luminescent Threads celebrates Octavia E. Butler, a pioneer of the Science Fiction genre who paved the way for future African American writers and other writers of colour. Original essays and letters sourced and curated for this collection explore...

These are the books you should read. This is the canon. Upending our traditionally white-dominated 'to be read' piles, Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne and Kadija Sesay push to the fore the voices and cultural perspectives that demand a place on...

What are the conditions needed for our nation to bridge cultural and racial divides? By writing beyond race, noted cultural critic bell hooks models the constructive ways scholars, activists, and readers can challenge and change systems of domination.In...

"Fascinating and instructive...King's philosophy, speaking to us through the written word, may turn out to constitute his most enduring legacy."--Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Review of Books Martin Luther King, Jr., is one of America's most revered...