African-American Interest Books – Free & Bargain Priced!

When The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983, its author Alice Walker became the first woman of color to win the prize. She also went on to win the National Book Award for Fiction in the same year. Mel Watkins of the New York Times Book Review described the novel as a “striking and consummately well-written novel,” praising its powerful emotional impact and epistolary structure.

Beginning in the 1970s, African American interest books reached the mainstream as literature by Black writers continually achieved best-selling and award-winning status – this was also the period when the work of African-American writers became recognised as a distinct and legitimate genre of American literature.

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What is African-American Literature?

African-American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature and the arts, influenced both by writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. African-American writers have been recognized by the highest awards, including the Nobel Prize given to Toni Morrison in 1993. Among the themes and issues explored in this literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and social equality. African-American writing has tended to incorporate oral forms, such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues, or rap.

Source: Wikipedia > African-American literature

The period of the 1970s saw many African-American books on bestseller lists. One of the first to do so was Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley. A fictionalized account of Haley’s family history which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and became a popular tv miniseries.

Other important writers include Gayl Jones, Rasheed Clark, Ishmael Reed, Jamaica Kincaid, Randall Kenan, and John Edgar Wideman. Poet Maya Angelou read a poem at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, Rita Dove won a Pulitzer Prize and served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, and Cyrus Cassells’s Soul Make a Path through Shouting was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. Natasha Trethewey won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with her book Native Guard. In 2004 Edward P. Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his book The Known World.

Young African-American novelists include David Anthony Durham, Karen E. Quinones Miller, Tayari Jones, Kalisha Buckhanon, Mat Johnson, ZZ Packer and Colson Whitehead, among many others.

An African-American pioneer in genre fiction is Chester Himes, who in the 1950s and ’60s wrote a series of pulp fiction detective novels featuring “Coffin” Ed Johnson and “Gravedigger” Jones, two New York City police detectives. Himes paved the way for the later crime novels of Walter Mosley and Hugh Holton. African Americans are also represented in the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, with Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Robert Fleming, Brandon Massey, Charles R. Saunders, John Ridley, John M. Faucette, Sheree Thomas and Nalo Hopkinson just at the beginning of a very long list.

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African American Interest Books - The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award African American Interest Book – The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Highly reviewed African American interest books – Deliverance Mary Fields by Miantae Metcalf McConnell

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Road Block

Jun 25, 2021 | African-American Interest

Too much news is good for one thing: Writer's Block. Stuck on deadline and head spun over reports about her Ex, Dana Langley closes herself off to get things done, but thanks to the word traffic jam, nothing is flowing. Her bestie/agent suggests she goes out of town...

The Good Lord Bird

Jun 24, 2021 | African-American Interest

Now a Showtime limited series starring Ethan Hawke and Daveed Diggs Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction From the bestselling author of Deacon King Kong (an Oprah Book Club pick) and The Color of Water comes the story of a young boy...

Kane

Jun 23, 2021 | African-American Interest

A gripping urban crime novel with unforgettable characters you'll love. No one ever promised Kane a comfortable life. The former five-star athlete is down on his luck and struggling with trying to regain his footing. Just when a plan begins to form, his world is...

Heated

Jun 22, 2021 | African-American Interest

She's Sexy In The City... Bianca King is living the golden life in metro Georgia with a booming veterinary practice and a steady string of dates--until her somewhat estranged father asks for her help in keeping the family ranch afloat. When Bianca returns to her small...

Heated

Jun 21, 2021 | African-American Interest

The Bone and Sinew of the Land

Jun 20, 2021 | African-American Interest

The long-hidden stories of America's black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for the heart of the nation When black settlers Keziah and Charles Grier started clearing their frontier land in 1818, they couldn't know that they were part of...

Daddy King

Jun 19, 2021 | African-American Interest

From growing up amidst poverty and racism to preaching from the Ebenezer pulpit for forty years, King, Sr., reveals his life inside the civil rights movement—illustrating the profound influence he had on his son Born in 1899 to a family of sharecroppers in...

Forty Acres

Jun 18, 2021 | African-American Interest

"A thriller in a class by itself -- brilliant and scary!" -- Terry McMillan Read the page-turning, provocative thriller that will forever change the way you think about slavery and its legacy in today's America. Martin Grey, a smart, talented black lawyer working out...

The Sweetest Hallelujah

Jun 17, 2021 | African-American Interest

An unforgettable story of two courageous women brought together by one extraordinary little girl Betty Jewel Hughes was once the hottest black jazz singer in Memphis. But when she finds herself pregnant and alone, she gives up her dream of being a star to raise her...

Flowers in the Snow

Jun 16, 2021 | African-American Interest

In the 1960s, Edenville, North Carolina is full of rules. Sagging under the weight of racism and segregation the small community finds itself at a dangerous tipping point. Eleven-year-old Betty Grafton believes the world is fair. She knows there are worse places to...

Call Your Daughter Home

Jun 15, 2021 | African-American Interest

Featured on Oprah's Summer Reading List For readers of Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing and Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, this extraordinary historical debut novel follows three fierce Southern women in an unforgettable story of motherhood and...

Think Black

Jun 14, 2021 | African-American Interest

“Powerful memoir. . .Ford’s thought-provoking narrative tells the story of African-American pride and perseverance.” –Publisher’s Weekly (Starred)“A masterful storyteller, Ford interweaves his personal story with the...

Touched by You

Jun 13, 2021 | African-American Interest

Unimaginable luxury. Longstanding wealth. A powerful family empire that controls the town of Wellspring, Michigan. But three heirs are done—with all of it. Now one by one, these very different siblings are seizing control of their lives . . . and daring to find...

Forty Acres

Jun 12, 2021 | African-American Interest

Zikora

Jun 12, 2021 | African-American Interest

The emotional storms weathered by a mother and daughter yield a profound new understanding in a moving short story by the bestselling, award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists. When Zikora, a DC lawyer from Nigeria, tells her equally...

A Rage in Harlem

Jun 11, 2021 | African-American Interest

A Rage in Harlem is a ripping introduction to Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, patrolling New York City's roughest streets in Chester Himes's groundbreaking Harlem Detectives series. For love of fine, wily Imabelle, hapless Jackson surrenders his life savings...

Man on the Run

Jun 10, 2021 | African-American Interest

One man must prove his innocence while finding which friend betrayed him in this high-drama, action-packed novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Family Business series. Jay Crawford has spent too long paying for a crime he didn't commit. For ten...

Mrs. Wiggins

Jun 7, 2021 | African-American Interest

Reminiscent of her captivating, scandalous Mama Ruby series, New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe crafts a story set in the Deep South during the Depression, in this tale of a woman determined to have a respectable life—no matter what it costs to keep...

Blanche

Jun 6, 2021 | African-American Interest

All four ground-breaking Blanche White novels by Mystery Writers of America grandmaster Barbara Neely, Winner of the Agatha and Macavity Awards.... in one volume. “One is tempted to describe Blanche White as a combination of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple...

Zikora

Jun 5, 2021 | African-American Interest

Red River

Jun 4, 2021 | African-American Interest

Hailed as "powerful," "accomplished," and "spellbinding," Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's...

Jubilee

Jun 3, 2021 | African-American Interest

The bestselling classic about a mixed-race child in the Civil War-era South that “chronicles the triumph of a free spirit over many kinds of bondage” (TheNew York Times Book Review). Jubilee tells the true story of Vyry, the child of a white...

Freeman

Jun 2, 2021 | African-American Interest

A former slave embarks on a hellish journey through the post-Civil War South to reunite with his wife, in this novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. With the news of General Lee's surrender, Sam, a runaway slave who served in the Union Army, decides to leave his...

Dessa Rose

Jun 1, 2021 | African-American Interest

Sherley A. Williams' highly acclaimed historical novel details two women's fierce strength of will and an unlikely bond despite racial barriers in the pre-civil war south "Having this treasure of a book available again for new and more readers is not only necessary,...

No Feelings Allowed

May 31, 2021 | African-American Interest

On the outside, former MVP wide-receiver turned successful entrepreneur, OB Daniels, is a player. A self-proclaimed dog. Carson Hollister, OB’s best friend, is the only one who knows the truth—it's the size of OB's heart that's the problem. Once he...

Midnight Atlanta

May 30, 2021 | African-American Interest

Midnight Atlanta is the stunning new novel in the award-nominated, critically acclaimed Darktown series, and sees a newspaper editor murdered against the backdrop of Rosa Parks' protest and Martin Luther King Jnr's emergence. Atlanta, 1956. When Arthur Bishop, editor...

Grace

May 29, 2021 | African-American Interest

Named a New York Times Best Book of the Year, 2016 For a runaway slave in the 1840s south, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic Massa. That's what fifteen-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama...

Little Green

May 28, 2021 | African-American Interest

When Walter Mosley burst onto the literary scene in 1990 with his first Easy Rawlins mystery, Devil in a Blue Dress -- a combustible mixture of Raymond Chandler and Richard Wright -- he captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers (including future...

Queen of the Conquered

May 27, 2021 | African-American Interest

An ambitious and unflinching tale of colonialism, conquest, and revenge, Queen of the Conquered begins a powerful fantasy series set in a Caribbean-inspired world. *Named one of TIME's Top 100 Fantasy Books Of All Time * World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, winner On...

I Almost Forgot About You

May 26, 2021 | African-American Interest

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting To Exhale is back with the inspiring story of a woman who shakes things up in her life to find greater meaning NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LIBRARY JOURNAL...

Meridian

May 25, 2021 | African-American Interest

"A classic novel of both feminism and the Civil Rights movement" in 1960s Atlanta by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple (Ms.). As she approaches the end of her teen years, Meridian Hill has already married, divorced, and given birth to a son. She's...

The Temple of My Familiar

May 24, 2021 | African-American Interest

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple weaves a "glorious and iridescent" tapestry of interrelated lives in this New York Times bestseller (Library Journal). In The Temple of My Familiar, Celie and Shug from The Color Purple subtly shadow the lives of...

The Prince’s Bride

May 23, 2021 | African-American Interest

Book 2 of The Prince's Bride duet. In book one, he was just a spoiled playboy prince whose family was in desperate need of money. Now everything has changed Odette Wyntor has a choice. Stay or Run. Royalty is not for the weak of heart. Can they handle what is to...

Forget Me Not

May 22, 2021 | African-American Interest

Brenda Jackson welcomes you back to Catalina Cove, where love is waiting to be reclaimed... Ashley Ryan never doubted that her husband, Devon, was the love of her life. Even now, three years after Devon died in a car wreck while on a business trip, Ashley can't bring...

Heated

May 21, 2021 | African-American Interest

Leaving Atlanta

May 20, 2021 | African-American Interest

From the author of the Oprah's Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is a beautifully evocative novel that proves why Tayari Jones is "one of the most important voices of her generation" (Essence). It was the end of summer, a summer during the...

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African-American Interest Books…

Red River

African-American Interest

A Tangled Mercy

African-American Interest

A haunting and redemptive novel inspired by the heartbreaking true events that occurred at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, A Tangled Mercy examines the horrifying depths of human brutality and our enduring hope for forgiveness. After the sudden death of her...

Who Fears Death

African-American Interest

Now optioned as a TV series for HBO, with executive producer George R. R. Martin! An award-winning literary author enters the world of magical realism with her World Fantasy Award-winning novel of a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa. In a post-apocalyptic...

Midnight Robber

African-American Interest

A "[d]eeply satisfying" [The New York Times Book Review] story of a father who has committed an unbelievable crime and a daughter who must then fight to save her own life. "Caribbean patois adorns this novel with graceful rhythms... Beneath it lie complex, clearly...

It’s Not All Downhill from Here

African-American Interest

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • After a sudden change of plans, a remarkable woman and her loyal group of friends try to figure out what she’s going to do with the rest of her life—from Terry McMillan, the bestselling author of How...

The Secret Women

African-American Interest

TOP SUMMER 2020 BEACH READ PICK--theSKIMM, PopSugar, Time, Woman's World, Parade, and Bookstr The author of Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, now a Netflix film starring Alfre Woodard, returns with a riveting, emotionally rich, novel that explores the complex...

His Truth Is Marching On

African-American Interest

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present—from the Pulitzer...

What's Mine and Yours

African-American Interest

A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! An instant New York Times bestseller! "A once-every-few-years reading experience." -- Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes "Coster portrays her characters' worlds with startling vitality. As...

The Color Purple Collection

African-American Interest

Three novels by a New York Times-bestselling author -- including the Pulitzer Prizewinner The Color Purple -- that speak to the African experience in America. The Color Purple is Alice Walker's stunning, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of courage in the face of...

The Dry Grass of August

African-American Interest

In this beautifully written debut, Anna Jean Mayhew offers a riveting depiction of Southern life in the throes of segregation, what it will mean for a young girl on her way to adulthood -- and for the woman who means the world to her... On a scorching day in August...

The Antiracist

African-American Interest

What would happen if people started moving beyond the conversation and took action to combat racism? We are in an era where many Americans express the sentiment, “I thought we were past that,” when a public demonstration of racism comes...

Coltrane

African-American Interest

John Coltrane left an indelible mark on the world, but what was the essence of his achievement that makes him so prized forty years after his death? What were the factors that helped Coltrane become who he was? And what would a John Coltrane look like now--or are we...