As Black History Month begins, it is important to remember the many black writers who have helped to shape America as well as the rest of the world. Here are just a few of the incredible black writers who have captured the nuance of the black community as it was, as it is, and as it could be in the future. I took care to try and incorporate authors who each write a unique genre of fiction, but there are so many more I could talk about–not to mention the poets, playwrights, and biographers who have made a huge impact as well.
Each of these writers shaped African-American history and inspired millions to people. They have highlighted African-American contributions to America’s history and deepened our understanding of this country’s past in a celebration of the African diaspora.
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison was not afraid to tell it like it is. One of the most celebrated and prolific authors in modern American literature, Morrison’s stories have defined and redefined what it means to be a black person in America. In addition to her non-fiction, short fiction, and theatre works, she published eleven (!) novels, which are set in all different time periods and explore the identities of black people in a variety of standings and situations in life. Morrison’s writing is at once wonderfully poetic, surprisingly humorous, and hauntingly real. She was able to paint vivid imagery in the reader’s mind, weaving her dialogue and description together wonderfully and drawing out deep and complex emotions in her prose. From Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, which criticizes the hostility and shame inflicted by white standards of beauty, to Beloved, a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece that follows a runaway slave who becomes haunted by the ghost of her dead daughter, Morrison’s writing explores black identity in all its complexity–not as defined by Eurocentric ideas, but as defined by the humans who make up the very soul of her writing. If you’re looking for a place to start with African-American literature, Toni Morrison is a great choice.
Angie Thomas
Chances are you’ve read, watched, or at least heard of Angie Thomas’s young adult novel The Hate U Give.
The author’s debut novel, which started as a senior project in college, follows Starr Carter, a high schooler constantly switching between two worlds: the poor, mostly-black neighborhood where she lives, and the wealthy, mostly-white neighborhood where she goes to school. She prefers to keep things separate–but when she witnesses the shooting of a childhood friend by a police officer, her two worlds are forced to collide.
Filled with poignant emotion, wicked humour, and a narrative that hits reality pretty hard, The Hate U Give reaches out to young people especially. It brings to light the harsh reality of racism and discrimination in the present day, demonstrating that although we have come a long way, we also have a long way to go. It shows the strength we can find in family and community, and it displays the hope we have within us–in this case, the hope inspired by a girl who has the courage to find her voice and fight for justice in an unjust world.
Now having published three other books, On the Come Up; Find Your Voice; and Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas says that she looks at books as “being a form of activism. Sometimes they’ll show us a side of the world that we might not have known about.”
Lawrence Hill
A Canadian author whose first passion was actually running, Lawrence Hill is perhaps the most well-known for his 2007 novel The Book of Negroes (published as Someone Knows My Name in the United States). It narrates the life of Aminata Diallo, who is kidnapped from her village of Bayo, Niger, and is forced into American slavery at the age of eleven. The story follows this incredibly resilient young woman as she makes her way from Africa, across the sea to the United States, to Canada, back to Africa, and finally to England. As Aminata learns the ways of the world, she never stops fighting for her freedom, and, soon enough, for the freedom of others.
Lawrence Hill takes an insightful spin on the history of the slave trade and how it affected the millions of people involved. He is not afraid to show the awful physical and mental stress it had on its victims–but he also displays the community, love, and perseverance found in historical communities and characters.
Octavia E. Butler
Born in Pasadena, California shortly after World War II, Octavia Butler dreamt of stories from an early age. She begged her mother for a typewriter at the age of twelve after enduring a science fiction film called Devil Girl From Mars. Butler was unimpressed with the film and knew she could do better. She knew that most science fiction books and films featured white male characters who killed aliens–but Butler wanted to write diverse characters for diverse audiences. She was able to bring a depth and nuance to her characters that wasn’t present in science fiction before.
Butler’s work often takes disturbing issues in the world, such as discrimination, and blends them into her stories, creating a new context in which they are set and allowing the reader to explore these problems through a different perspective. For instance, her novel The Parable of the Sower takes the reader to a near-future California that has been ruined by corporate greed, environmental destruction, and inequality. It follows a protagonist who has hyperempathy, which allows her to feel other people’s pain and sometimes their pleasure. The story highlights the importance of adapting in a constantly-changing world. In her sequel, The Parable of the Talents, she writes about a presidential candidate who controls America with virtual reality and shock collars. His slogan is, “Make America Great Again.” (Take in that this was written in 1998!)
Through her writing, Butler has been able to bring diverse characters to the forefront of science fiction and explore political and social justice issues while she’s at it.
These are just a few of the black authors I have researched, read, and enjoyed; each with a unique story to tell. And I could sit here all day, writing paragraphs more about such legends as Maya Angelou, Langston Hues, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Barack and Michelle Obama, and so many more who have impacted my life as well as the lives of others. But my advice to you is to see for yourself. My word will not be helpful until you go out and pick up a book by one of these talented people. Listen to the truths in these writers’ words, and learn from the stories they tell of their past while they pave new ways for the future.
Originally published on February 10, 2021
Sources
“About.” Angie Thomas, 2021, angiethomas.com/about.
Biography. “Toni Morrison.” Biography, 14 Jan. 2021,
www.biography.com/writer/toni-morrison.
Jamieson, Ayana, and Moya Bailey. “Why Should You Read Sci-Fi Superstar Octavia E.
Butler?” TED-Ed, Ted-ED, 25 Feb. 2019,
ed.ted.com/lessons/why-should-you-read-sci-fi-superstar-octavia-e-butler-ayana-jamies
n-and-moya-bailey.
“The Author.” Octavia E. Butler, 2021, www.octaviabutler.com/theauthor.
“About the Author.” Lawrence Hill, 2021, www.lawrencehill.com/the-author.
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