Black Writers You Should Know

1. Beloved by Toni Morrison — A poetic masterpiece about memory, motherhood, and the ghosts of slavery.

2. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi — This bold, sensual novel redefines what it means to move forward after loss.

3. The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. — A love story between two enslaved men on a Southern plantation.

4. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin — In a dying world, a mother searches for her missing daughter amid the collapse of civilization. 

5. All About Love by Bell Hooks — An exploration of what love is, what it isn’t, and why it’s the most transformative force we have.

6. Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome — A powerful coming-of-age story about Black masculinity, queerness, addiction, and the search for identity.

7. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson — A profoundly human account of the Great Migration told through the lives of three individuals.

8. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston — A collection of stories that bring Harlem Renaissance-era Black life and womanhood vividly to life.

9. An Ordinary Wonder by Buki Papillon — A coming-of-age novel about an intersex Nigerian teenager navigating identity, family pressure, and self-discovery.

10. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson  — Told in the hypnotic second person, this aching love story explores Black art, vulnerability, and the emotional weight of moving through the world in a Black body.