Browse Items (27 total)

Fusing magical realism, folklore, and elements of speculative fiction, Mama Day is a story about the generations of African Americans born post-emancipation. Set in the Sea Islands off of the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, Mama Day pulls…

Journalist Era Bell Thompson, a lasting influence on the Chicago Renaissance, has not been widely recognized for her autobiographical work. In 1947 Thompson was one of the first editors of Ebony magazine, working for the publication until her death…

A modern blues novel, Blues Dancing captures the emotional aesthetic of the blues. Diane McKinney-Whetstone captures the emotional toll of love and relationships through the life of Verdi Mae. In a narrative that jumps between the 1970s and the…

No discussion of the Harlem Renaissance is complete without poet Countee Cullen. Writing and publishing at the height of the renaissance, Cullen was a key figure in this literary movement. At the age of twenty-two, Cullen published Color, his very…

Chinua Achebe, famed author of Things Fall Apart, is recognized as a key author of postcolonial fiction. In his memoir There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, Achebe addresses his personal experiences living in Nigeria during…

Fluctuating between magical and literary realism, Ben Okri’s The Famished Road is a novel that shifts between African folklore traditions and the literary styles of the West. Set in an unnamed postcolonial Nigerian city, The Famished Road follows…

Dreams from My Father recounts the earliest portion of President Barack Obama’s life from his childhood until he entered Harvard Law School. The memoir, praised by many authors and critics for its prose, captures Obama’s voice in his search for…