African category: 8440 books

Published in 1852, the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause and laying the groundwork for the Civil War. Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Academy and an active abolitionist,...

The crocogator is an urban legend in the African-American tradition. In The Tale of the Western Crocogator, I take this legendary figure out of his native home in New York's Harlem and send him to Los Angeles. In his adventure he finds out things about himself he had not known and develops a new appreciation for his female companion.

The now-trendy Plaza-Midwood area of inner east Charlotte (NC, USA) is known as Plasma-Wigwood in hip circles. But, exactly how did this term come about? This 1600-word short story posits a possible source: a pair of young dudes, a Caucasian and an African American, in the mid-1970s. A truly electrifying...

Five of the most daring voices in African American literature today explore the sizzling, wildly popular genre of erotica in this unique collection edited by the author who “cleverly delivers all that her name stands for: Never Tell Your Secrets” (Zane). Dare to embrace your wild side as...

Twenty-Five year old Zaid has just been released from prison and hopes to reunite with Amiah, the mother of his child. After a shocking event, Zaid's life is forever changed and he is faced with his most difficult challenge yet. Note: This is a short story of approximately 2,100 words or 10 pages. African-American Fiction.

In 1959, newly-widowed and pregnant Ruby Washington and her thirteen-year-old half brother, Easton, board a bus in rural South Carolina, destined for Oakland, California. There, far from the violent events that forced her to flee her home, Ruby hopes to make a new life for her family. Ruby...

Dale is a top-tier engineer and his wife Monique is a successful African American financial manager. Monique is a gorgeous, full-figured, dark-skinned woman who finally completed her life's dream to become the true definition of success.  Together, they are unstoppable except for one little...

Twenty-three dollars and eleven cents–that’s all that thirty-five-year-old Chloe Davis Michaels has to her name after she is driven from her home and career as a jet-setting Hollywood publicist, desperate to protect her unborn child from her crazed newlywed husband. She thought she had it all....

A ghost story with a beat . . . Bertice Berry follows her finely pitched Blackboard bestselling debut novel, Redemption Song, with a mesmerizing cautionary tale about urban hip hop culture. In ancient West Africa, the drum was more than a musical instrument, it was a vehicle of communication–it...

In Other People's Skin, Tracy Price-Thompson and TaRessa Stovall, along with fellow authors Elizabeth Atkins and Desiree Cooper, take on one of the most controversial topics within the African-American community: the self-hatred caused by intra-racial prejudice and the ongoing obsession with skin...

Three lyrical and unforgettable novels from the National Book Award–winning author of The Women of Brewster Place.   After winning both the National Book Award and the American Book Award for her now iconic debut novel, The Women of Brewster Place, which was later made into a TV miniseries starring...

An African American Breakfast at Tiffany’s–a hip, refreshingly candid tale of identity and self—discovery from the critically acclaimed author of The View from Here and Walking Through Mirrors. Mason Randolph, a black preppie of impeccable Southern pedigree, is bound for Stanford Law...

Mark Binelli turns his sharp, forceful prose to fiction, in an inventive retelling of the outrageous life of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, a bluesman with one hit and a string of inflammatory guises He came on stage in a coffin, carried by pallbearers, drunk enough to climb into his casket every night....

“A funny, fresh novel about growing up African-American in 1960s Chicago” by an author who “writes like Terry McMillan’s kid sister” (Entertainment Weekly). In this hilarious and insightful coming-of-age novel, author April Sinclair introduces the charming Jean “Stevie” Stevenson,...