Literary Criticism

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...

Explore the Stories Behind the Legends First introduced in 2011 by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, Miles Morales reconceived Spider-Man as African American and Latinx, and his debut marked a new direction in the saga of a beloved character. Miles...

The first book-length study of Dorothy West, now with new writings and insights Originally published in 2005, WheretheWildGrapeGrows: SelectedWritings, 1930-1950 was the first book-length study of Dorothy West's work, providing a rich and insightful...

Across a range of literary texts, Black writers depict taking flight to escape systems of subordination from the Middle Passage and the plantation to the present-day racialized order. While flight, air, and aviation technologies have long held out the...

Across a range of literary texts, Black writers depict taking flight to escape systems of subordination from the Middle Passage and the plantation to the present-day racialized order. While flight, air, and aviation technologies have long held out the...

This book combines in one volume two now classic short story collections. The editor has added a new introduction and prefatory material. "Mary Helen Washington has had a greater impact upon the formation of the canon of Afro-American literature than has...

Following his essential writing guide, This Year You Write Your Novel, award-winning author Walter Mosley delivers an eloquent treatise on the craft of fiction writing--part writing guide, part study of the mechanics of the genre. In his essential...

An elegant biography of a prescient author whose novels portray Black women's experiences across the African diaspora Growing up in World War II-era Brooklyn among West Indian immigrants, Paule Marshall (1929-2019) was fiercely driven to become a writer,...