Literary Criticism

One of the most provocative and original voices in contemporary literature, Chinua Achebe here considers the place of literature and art in our society in a collection of essays spanning his best writing and lectures from the last twenty-three years. For...

Vivid poems of "breakdown and spiritual disarray." Writing these, Walker says, "led me eventually into a larger understanding of the psyche, and of the world." What finally marks this volume is the strong sense of change and, ultimately, of forgiveness...

The Encyclopedia of Black Comics, focuses on people of African descent who have published significant works in the United States or have worked across various aspects of the comics industry. The book focuses on creators in the field of comics: inkers,...

This close study of the first six novels of Toni Morrison--The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, and Jazz--situates her as an African American writer within the American literary tradition who interrogates national identity and...

By the time of her death, at the tragically young age of thirty-four, Lorraine Hansberry had created two electrifying masterpieces of the American theater. With A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry gave this country its most movingly authentic portrayal of...

Easy Rawlins is on the verge of losing everything--until he gets an offer from the FBI that he has no choice but to accept. For most Black Americans, the 1960s were times of hope. For former P.I. Easy Rawlins, Los Angeles's mean streets were never...

"An engaging, introspective view of poet Langston Hughes and curates a compelling narrative of Hughes as an activist, advocate, and champion of justice through his poetry." --Library Journal "By resisting a sanitized version of Hughes, My America...

When did you feel the pull of poetry? For Ashley M. Jones, the moment she knew she would be a poet was at seven years old--reciting "Harriet Tubman" by Eloise Greenfield. That moment, that poem, showed her there was a place for her in the world of...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring This Very Short Introduction brings together a wide range of narratives of slavery across a broad historical period to understand how Black people--enslaved and not-enslaved--have experienced and...

Baltimore's Black Arts Then & Now brings to life the Chicory Revitalization Project, a public humanities initiative that revives Baltimore's historic Chicory magazine. From 1966 to 1983, Chicory served as a powerful voice for working-class Black...

A probing essay collection that chronicles one woman's complicated quest to find home in a fractured America, from the award-winning author of Field Study "In Chet'la Sebree's sensitive and tender hands, this book's quest (and question) of home is...

A timely look at contemporary African American creative works through the lens of Ta-Nehisi Coates's ground-breaking entry into the comic book industry. Writing Black Panther traces Ta-Nehisi Coates's presence in comic books from 2015-2023, focusing on...