New Books by Black Authors for Black History Month

by Taylor Follett

February 2019 marks the celebration of Black History Month in the United States, and the perfect opportunity to read recently published works by Black authors! 2018 (and the beginning of 2019) saw some wonderful novels, poetry collections, memoirs and more. Check out some of the major works published in the past year from the library below.

Kick off your reading with these phenomenal novels! An American Marriage was lauded as one of the best novels published in 2018, while Children of Blood and Bone is being called the “Black Harry Potter.” Basically, they’re must-reads.

2018 was also a wonderful year for short story collections. All of these collections are wonderful, and Meet Behind Mars is almost impossible to put down. Luckily, the library has it in eBook format, so you can easily read it from anywhere.

The current U.S. Poet Laureate and a former Poet Laureate both published new collections in the past twelve months, which should give some indication to the sheer quality (and quantity) of Black poetry recently published. You can find them, along with Justin Phillip Reed’s National Book Award winning poetry here:

It goes without saying that 2018 saw some major memoirs, with Michelle Obama’s much-anticipated Becoming hitting the shelves. Becoming, along with these other critically acclaimed memoirs, are already in the library:

Round out your reading with these personal and critical essay collections. These works, all by women, take up issues of race, feminism, and motherhood in 21st-century America:

Looking for more? Check out last year’s round-up of major works in Black literary history. Want to see your favorite book by a Black author featured in the Literatures blog? Tweet us here. Don’t forget, you can also request books you want to see in the library here!

The quoted review of Children of Blood and Bone was pulled from Huffington Post article “Tomi Adeyemi Wanted ‘Children Of Blood And Bone’ To Be ‘So Good… So Black’” by Ja’han Jones. The selection of above books was informed by articles from The Root and The Grio.