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Rachel Howzell Hall Crafts a New Type of Hero in Her Detective Mysteries
The detective-mystery genre is dominated by male heroes—white male heroes, to be precise. There is Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Elmore Leonard and Dashiell Hammett’s leading men. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. And many, many more. The few black faces we have in…
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In Search of the Truth About James Brown
In 2013 James McBride won the prestigious National Book Award for his novel The Good Lord Bird, which follows a teenage slave who joins abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 rebellion. Prior to that, McBride had authored the best-selling memoir The Color of Water and two works of fiction: Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna.…
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In a Kafkaesque Turn, a Black Man Wakes Up White, Except for His Blackass
In Franz Kafka’s classic novel The Metamorphosis, young Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself turned into a giant cockroach—and his entire life is upended. Gregor’s family shuns him, he cannot get work, his life is threatened at every moment; he retreats into isolation and depression, unable to understand the violence and anger…
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Review: 9 Short Stories in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
Born in Nigeria in 1984, author Helen Oyeyemi has lived in the United Kingdom since age 4. Oyeyemi made a name for herself as a writer early on—winning the 2010 Somerset Maugham Award and a 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and being named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists in 2013. Oyeyemi, who wrote her…
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A Lifelong Lover of Books Breaks Ground Atop the Literary World
At 36 years old, Lisa Lucas is a woman of firsts. A little less than four years ago, she was appointed the first African American and first female publisher of Guernica magazine. This month she was appointed the first African American and first woman to be executive director of the National Book Foundation. “The National…
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And After Many Days: A New Nigerian Novelist Publishes a Highly Anticipated Debut Work
On a Monday afternoon in 1995 during Nigeria’s rainy season, Paul Utu, the eldest of three children, leaves home and does not return. Thus begins Jowhor Ile’s highly anticipated debut novel, And After Many Days. Jowhor Ile, the 10th child of Nigerian parents, was born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and now makes his…
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Books by Black Authors to Look Forward to in 2016
It is no secret that “African-American women are the largest group of readers in the country,” states Dawn Davis, head of Simon & Schuster’s 37 Ink imprint. It is also no secret that the publishing world is very, very white, with books by black authors published at an abysmal low, never rising above 10 percent…
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Why Are Democrats Still Chasing White Voters When Brown and Black Is Where It’s At?
“For hundreds of years, what most mattered in America was whether you were White or not, and that question has continued to be the driving force in our politics, as consultants and candidates have competed for the support of White swing voters thought to be essential to winning elections,” writes Steve Phillips in the opening…
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Nnedi Okorafor Is Putting Africans at the Center of Science Fiction and Fantasy
“In postapocalyptic and apocalyptic narratives when they show the whole world freaking out about something that is happening to the Earth, they never show Africa,” says Nnedi Okorafor, the author of 11 books of science fiction and fantasy, among them the award-winning Zahra the Windseeker, The Book of Phoenix and Who Fears Death. “I wasn’t…
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Kevin Powell: The Evolution of an Activist
“There are folks who think I’m just a writer, and that is absolutely untrue,” Kevin Powell begins. “I’ve been an activist for 30 years.” He has just gotten off the phone with a woman from Guyana who is seeking his help to obtain an organ transplant for her sick father in New Jersey. Powell, one…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
