Reading Suggestions: Black U.S. fiction

As part of my focus on anti-racism literature, I’ve started this (very partial!) list of some of my favorite fiction by Black authors, chronically Black experiences in the U.S. since slavery. These all better our understanding of race and racism in different ways. I’ll continue to update it as more novels come to my attention, and I’d love to add your suggestions — please get in touch if you’ve read a book that should be included. May this list be a springboard for your own exploration of Black literature. Enjoy!

Mid-late 1800s - Slavery and Reconstruction

Middle Passage by Charles Johnson (1990)

The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2003)

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (2019)

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

1920s-30s - Depression and Harlem Renaissance

Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen (1928, 1929)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman (1929)

Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)

1940s-1980s

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (2020)

Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall (1983)

1990s-present

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (2019)

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson (2019)

The Sellout by Paul Beatty (2015)

I also want to call out August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle (or Century Cycle), a series of ten plays, each set in one decade of the 1900s. Notably: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1910s), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1920s), and The Piano Lesson (1930s).