Here’s a non-exhaustive list of books that have been helping me to learn and reflect over the years on the issues of racism, white privilege, and coloniality; these books are written by Black authors and reflect on Black lived experiences.
This year, to align with the theme of Black History Month ‘Celebrating our Sisters’, the list is focusing on Black women.
A ghost story and a family drama, an intimate portrait of love and loss.
The colour purple
Alice Walker
The classic tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation.
I remember death by its proximality to what I love
Mahogany L. Browne
Evocative book-length poem explores the impacts of the prison system on both the incarcerated and the loved ones left behind.
Long gone, come home
Monica Chenault-Kilgore
An extraordinary tale of resilience and determination.
Stay with me
Ayòbámi Adébáyò
A heart-grabbing story about love, pain, desire, heartbreak and deceit.
Sula
Toni Morrison
A story of a young black girl named Sula, who matures into a strong and determined woman.
The Billboard
Natalie Y. Moore
A play about a fictional Black women’s clinic in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on the South Side.
Ghana must go
Taiye Selasi
The novel follows the Sai family as they come to terms with their father Kweku Sai's death, and as they work through family troubles.
Small Island
Andrea Levy
A story of post-war Caribbean migration, narrated from four different perspectives.
The Shadow King
Maaza Mengiste
An exploration of female power, and what it means to be a woman at war.
Kindred
Octavia Butler
A novel that incorporates historical slavery, time travel and at a beautiful romance.
The Fraud
Zadie Smith
A dazzling novel about how in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception.
Purple Hibiscus
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred; between the old gods and the new.
Queenie
Candice Carty-Williams
A novel about the life and loves of Queenie Jenkins, a vibrant, troubled 25-year-old British- Jamaican woman who is not having a very good year.
This mournable body
Tsitsi Dangarembga
A novel about hope and potential of one young girl on a journey to discover where lives go after hope has departed.
The love songs of W.E.B. du Bois
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The history of an African-American family in the American South, from the time before the American civil war and slavery, through the Civil Rights Movement, to the present.
Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands
Hazel V. Carby
A haunting and evocative history of British empire, told through one woman's family story.
Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman
Michelle Wallace
A classic and controversial critique of sexism in the Black nationalist movement.
An Autobiography
Angela Davis
A powerful and commanding account of the life of trailblazing political activist Angela Davis.
Experiments in Imagining Otherwise
Lola Olufemi
A book of failure and mistakes; it begins with what is stolen from us and proposes only an invitation to imagine.
Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation
Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Gathering together work from over three decades, this book presents Gilmore’s contribution to feminism, abolition, academia and more.
Organise, Fight, Win
Charisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi Dean
This collection brings together three decades of Black Communist women's political writings.
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
An examination of the social, political and economic dimensions of the prevailing racial injustice.
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us
Mariame Kaba
A collection of essays and interviews that reflect on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle.
All About Love
Bell Hooks
Essays that discuss aspects of romantic love in modern society.
Sister Outsider
Audre Lorde
A collection of essential essays and speeches exploring race, sexuality, poetry, friendship, the erotic and the need for female solidarity.
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
An extensive study of the role of Southern white women in the plantation economy and slave-market system.
Demonic Grounds
Katherine McKiarick
A powerful interpretation of Black women’s geographic thought.
The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain
Stella Dadzie
A socio-historical study of the realities of life for Black women in the United Kingdom after the Second World War.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colourblindness
Michelle Alexander
An account of the rebirth of a caste-like system that resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and relegated to a permanent second-class status.
As Black as Resistance
Zoe Samudzi
This book argues against compromise and negotiation with intolerance. It is a manifesto for everyone who is ready to continue progressing towards liberation.
Abolition. Feminism. Now
Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, Beth Richie
In this landmark work, four of the world's leading scholar-activists issue an urgent call for a truly intersectional, internationalist, abolitionist feminism.