African and African Diasporic Creative Texts

Following are just a few fictional works that I love from Africa and the African diaspora (both historical and contemporary). When I first devised the page the authors were divided by region. I have since decided to put everyone together to (in my own mind, at least), subvert the fissures. I’ll be adding to this list all the time so please check back often. If you have suggestions for more books, short stories, poetry, etc, please let me know!

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The Thing Around Your Neck. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
• _______. Purple Hibiscus. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2003.
• _______. Half of a Yellow Sun. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
• _______. Americanah. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
• _______. That Thing Around Your Neck. New York: Anchor Books, 2010.
• Bambara, Toni Cade. The Salt Eaters. New York: Vintage, 1980.
• Butler, Octavia. Fledgling. New York: Warner Books, 2005.
• Dorsinville, Max. Erzulie Loves Shango. Quebec: Les Editions du CIDIHCA, 1998.
• Gomez, Jewell. The Gilda Stories: A Novel. Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1991.
• Huchu, Tendai. The Hairdresser of Harare. Ohio University Press, 2010.
• Johnson, Charles. Middle Passage. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.
• ________. Dreamer. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1998.
• _______. Faith and the Good Thing. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1974.
• Jones, Edward P. The Known World. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.
• Larsen, Nella. Quicksand and Passing. Ed. Deborah E. McDowell. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
• Levy, Andrea. Never Far from Nowhere. London: Review, 1996.
• Major, Clarence. Reflex and Bone Structure. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1996.
• Marshall, Paule. Daughters. New York: Plume, 1991.
• McBride, James. Song Yet Sung. New York: Riverhead Books, 2008.
• Mengestu, Dinaw. The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.
• Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin Book, 1987.
• ________.A Mercy: A Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2008.
• Naylor, Gloria, Ed. Children of the Night: Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.
• ________. Mama Day. New Yotk: Vintage Books, 1993.
• Phillips, Caryl. The Atlantic Sound. London: Faber, 2000.
• ______. Crossing the River. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
• ______. A Distant Shore. New York; Vintage, 2003.
• Rawles, Nancy. My Jim.New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005.
• Schuyler, George S. Black-No-More. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.
• Wideman, John Edgar. All Stories Are True. New York: Vingtage Books, 1992.
• Reid, Victor. Nanny-Town. Kingston: Jamaica Publishing House, 1983.
• Roumain, Jacques. The Bewitched Mountain. New York: New Hemispher Books, 2004.
• Thoby-Marcelin, Philippe and Pierre Marcelin. Contes et Legendes d’Haiti. Paris: Fernand Nathan, 1967.

Poetry

• Jamaica Woman: An Anthology of Poems. Eds. Pamela Mordecai and Mervyn Morris. London: Heinemann, 1985
• Nichols, Grace. i is a long-memoried woman. London: Karnak House, 1984.
• ______. “Home Truths.” Hinterland: Caribbean Poetry. Ed. E.A. Markham. Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 1989, 296-8. T
• Palmer Adisa, Opal. Tamarind and Mango Woman. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1992.
• Senior, Olive. Gardening in the Tropics. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1994.
• Shange, Ntozake. For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf a Choreopoem. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1989.
• Williams, Saul. She. New York: Pocket Books, 1999