Jump to content

Black Authors


Recommended Posts

I don't know any personally, but I had a look on Wiki and found firstly Octavia Butler who I know you are aware of - the other name who jumped out was Samuel R. Delany, have you heard of him? He writes in many genres including Sci-Fi and seems to have won quite a few awards.

 

I also just discovered Nalo Hopkinson.

 

LeVar Burton, the guy who played Geordi LaForge in Star Trek: The Next Generation wrote a sci-fi book which might make for interesting reading considering his involvement with the genre on TV! It's called 'Aftermath.'

 

And lastly, Walter Mosely doesn't specialise in Sci-Fi, but he does write in a variety of genres and has three Sci-Fi novels.

 

I hope this helps!

Edited by Nollaig
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In general, no.

 

But Katrina is looking to increase the variety of genres covered by black authors in the bookshop where she works, as her manager insists on keeping them seperate from books by white authors, and the only books the shop has by black authors are virtually all perverse in nature. That's why she wants help finding suggestions, to increase stock diversity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I wanted to raise this issue up again for two reasons:

 

1) Katrina, I feel like I owe you another apology because I googled the books you were talking about and they were indeed really pornographic. You see I thought you meant rather average novels with sexual scenes or then the kind of women's softer sexual novels that they read for pleasure. I didn't realise you were talking about such in-your-face books. Sorry :smile2: I have more understanding now for where you were coming from.

 

2) I'm currently reading Alice Walker's The Color Purple and I'm really enjoying it and I thought I'd mention the novel as a great example of the kind of books you might want to have in your bookshop. It's also a Pulitzer prize winning novel :roll:

 

I also remembered that we had a literature course on black authors and novels and the sense of Otherness, and I'm gonna go and find my course material on that and get back to you if I find something interesting or something that hasn't been mentioned before on this thread.

 

Here's a list of the names I found:

Toni Morrison

Alain Locke

Jean Toomer

Langston Hughes

Countee Cullen

 

When I wikied these names, a lot of the names mentioned were part of the Harlem Renaissance which you might want to take a look at to find more about it :lol:

Edited by frankie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can't always tell what an author's background is. Here's a list of some of the books I have actually read from authors of a non-European background.

 

Classics/drama/novels:

VS Naipaul, 'Miguel Street', 'A House of Mr Biswas'

Earl Lovelave, 'A Dragon can't Dance'

Michael Anthony, 'A year in San Fernando', 'Green days by the River'

C Everard Palmer, 'The wooing of Beppo Tate'

Rosa Guy, 'The Friends'

Alice Walker, 'The Colour Purple', 'Possessing the Secret of Joy' (a little sexual refferences and disturbing themes)

Maya Angelou, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', 'And Still I Rise'

Gloria Naylor, 'The Women of Brewster Place'

Ben Okri, 'Famishing the gods'

Chinua Achebe, 'Things Fall Apart', 'No Longer at Ease'

Andrea Levy, 'Small Island'

Zadie Smith (mixed parentage), 'White Teeth'

Zee Edgell, 'Beka Lamb'

 

Sci-fi/fantasy/horror:

Octavia Butler, 'Xenogenesis (republised as Lilith's Brood or you can get the books separately as 'Dawn', 'Adult Rites'& 'Imago')', 'Kindred', 'Mind of my Mind', 'Parable of Talents', 'Fledgling ( a bit disturbing)'

LA Banks, 'Minion (would be classed as paranormal but I'm not sure about the romance bit. The language, ebonics, takes getting used to. This was a difficult read for me).

 

Poetry:

Benjamin Zephaniah

Derek Walcott

The Mighty Sparrow (known singer/writer/calysonian in the Caribbean)

 

 

 

I've never taken a book off the black author shelves in the libraries or book shops. Having grew up in the Caribbean amongs avid readers I hear of books. Others I come across by chance and may later discover more about the authors which may come as a suprise.

Edited by Kreader
highlighting and additions
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gloria Naylor, 'The Women of Brewster Place'

 

Oh I'd forgotten about that one! I saw the title once in the library, picked it up and the blurb sounded interesting. I didn't borrow it though because I had so many other books to borrow. But a couple of weeks ago this book was in the removed from the library collection -shelves and I got it for 20 cents only, what a bargain. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you frankie! I really appreciate your making the effort, you didnt have to do it but you did and it means alot.

 

Yeah, I have no problem with sex in books in the general context (prude that I am:mrgreen:) but it should at least be a part OF the novel instead OF the novel! And these are the books that many young black girls are reading. They truly believe that they are literate because they read this **** by the ton and then they go out and try to live like these females. They want men who are dealers and beaters, they have babies by these "men" they think that being called a female dog is a term of endearment. Breaks my heart.

 

I have got my mini-shelf set up and I've come up with some pretty good authors. I do have Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison and a few others whose names are so difficult to pronounce that I wont even attempt to spell them! The display is in a prominent area where there is alot of foot traffic, now we'll just wait and see if given a more varied choice of books, my customers might reconsider their reading matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have got my mini-shelf set up and I've come up with some pretty good authors. I do have Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison and a few others whose names are so difficult to pronounce that I wont even attempt to spell them! The display is in a prominent area where there is alot of foot traffic, now we'll just wait and see if given a more varied choice of books, my customers might reconsider their reading matter.

 

I'm glad to hear that there's now more variety in your bookshop :roll:

 

I just realised that most of the names I mentioned in my post are not the most modern ones and therefor maybe not what you were looking for but maybe someone else who's interested in African-American literature will make something of it :smile2:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But Katrina is looking to increase the variety of genres covered by black authors in the bookshop where she works, as her manager insists on keeping them seperate from books by white authors, and the only books the shop has by black authors are virtually all perverse in nature. That's why she wants help finding suggestions, to increase stock diversity.

 

Okay, now I started reading this thread and this baffled me. I, like some others mentioned here, don't know and don't care what color of skin the authors of the books I read have. I think it's ridiculous that this manager would place the books apart from the rest of the books, why on Earth would someone do this? They wouldn't even dream of doing that here, and honestly I think a lot of people would be offended by that. I mean, what does the race of the author has to do with what books they write? I'm sorry I can't give you any advice on more authors, because like I said I have no clue what they look like when I read their books (unless obviously books by authors like J.K. Rowling and King, who everyone knows), often I even don't know if they're male or female unless the name gives it away. That's the way I like it. Adds to the mystery.

 

But honestly, that this manager hasn't been accused of being a racist yet. Or am I pushing it now? That's what we would be inclined to do here. :smile2:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's completely racist, but I'm guessing that's why Katrina wanted to try to rectify the situation to the best extent she can (which is, if the authors are going to be seperated by her manager, that at least the section with Black authors is diverse).

 

(Sorry Katrina, not trying to speak FOR you or anything, just adding my two cents.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You did just fine Nollaig! Thank you.

 

Univerz, the manager felt as though it would make it "easier" for theser readers to find what they were looking for but I think they would have found it regardless as everything is listed aphabetically! I think she THOUGHT she was doing them a favor. I think it was a disservice. Desegregate the books and people will be forced to look at the books next to it, which might encourage them to read outside their normal book of choice!

Edited by Echo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking through this thread, I didn't notice anyone mentioning Earnest J Gaines. His books include A Lesson before Dying, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men and many more. Terrific storyteller.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You did just fine Nollaig! Thank you.

 

Univerz, the manager felt as though it would make it "easier" for theser readers to find what they were looking for but I think they would have found it regardless as everything is listed aphabetically! I think she THOUGHT she was doing them a favor. I think it was a disservice. Desegregate the books and people will be forced to look at the books next to it, which might encourage them to read outside their normal book of choice!

Well in a twisted way I guess I could see her point, but even if she didn't mean it in a bad way, the idea that her brain works in such a way shows you how deep-down she does think of black people as other. :smile2: And I agree, the books are listen alphabetically anyway, so anyone coming to look for a particular author would have no problem finding them. :roll:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Hello again!

 

I've just read Push by Sapphire (the novel which has been made into the movie Precious) and I thought it was an excellent and thought-provoking read and you might want to check it out!

 

Here's info from amazon:

 

Claireece Precious Jones endures unimaginable hardships in her young life. Abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed. So what better way to learn about her than through her own, halting dialect. That is the device deployed in the first novel by poet and singer Sapphire. "Sometimes I wish I was not alive," Precious says. "But I don't know how to die. Ain' no plug to pull out. 'N no matter how bad I feel my heart don't stop beating and my eyes open in the morning." An intense story of adversity and the mechanisms to cope with it.

 

Some novels are mentioned in the book, they are given to Precious by her teacher and form her very dear own library:

 

1. Moira Crane: The Life of Lucy Fern

2. Karen McFall: Pat King's Family

3. Ann Petry: Harriet Tubman: Conductor of the Underground

4. Ann Mcgovern: Wanted Dead or Alive - The True Story of Harriet Tubman

5. Arnold Adoff: Malcolm X

6. J. California Cooper: A Piece of Mine

7. Alice Walker: The Colour Purple

8. Langston Hughes: Selected Poems

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...