Literary Criticism

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...

With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing illuminates the literature, music, and culture of both black and white America. His...

NAUTILUS BOOKS AWARDS GOLD MEDAL WINNER Special Honors as 2020 Nautilus Best of Anthology The Beautiful New Treasury of Poetry in Endangered Languages, in Association with the National Poetry Library Featuring award-winning poets from cultures as...

The first novel by "master of mystery" (The New York Times) Walter Mosley, featuring Easy Rawlins, the most iconic African American detective in all of fiction. Named one of the "best 100 mystery novels of all time" by the Mystery Writers of America,...

An authoritative anthology tracing the history of one of the most important concepts Black people drew on to challenge the brutal, totalizing system of Jim Crow racism This book brings together a wealth of readings on the metaphor of the "New Negro,"...

Juxtaposing the world-building of afrofuturism and the world-negating of afropessimism to show how both movements have offered us critical resources of hope. Science fiction imagines aliens and global crises as world-unifying events, both a threat and...

"Even though writing is a solitary act, when I sit with words that I trust will be read by someone, I know that I can never be truly alone." --bell hooks, "women who write too much"In this timeless essay collection on the writing life, award-winning...

In this follow-up volume in the Black Fire--This Time series, over seventy-five poets and writers come together on the ongoing theme of "Black is Beautiful, Black is Powerful, Black is Home." Works ranging from poetry, fiction, essays, and drama cover a...

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...

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...