7 books by Black authors to add to your reading list

This reading list surveys pivotal moments in the history of African-American Literature. Selections emphasize literary discourse as a means of defining African-American consciousness, identity and community. African-American texts explore a number of themes including the uses of folk/oral tradition, heroism, alienation, class, gender and colour consciousness, religion, freedom, subjectivity and politics. Selected writers also examine the relationship between the Black vernacular tradition and the Black formal text as well as political, cultural and critical issues of their time.

According to Dr. Albert J. Raboteau, African-American Literature “speaks to a deeper meaning of the African-American presence in this nation. This presence has been a test case of the nation’s claim to freedom, democracy, equality, the inclusiveness of all” (qtd in Driscoll Coon 2).

Furthermore, African-American writers refute the dominant culture’s literature and power; they are always indirectly or directly in dialogue with the white western paradigm that see Black people as inferior. For example, “David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World” (1829) was a bold attach on American slavery. It is in direct dialogue with Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia” (1781) by challenging Jefferson’s views that Blacks are inferior. In all, African-American Literature in one way or another has drawn upon African-Americans’ shared historical experience.

“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” (1845) - Frederick Dogulass

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself” (1861) - Harriet Jacobs

“It was but natural that the early literature of the Negro in the United States should have a serious tone. Tens of thousands of souls had been wrested from their fatherland; their children were subject to the lash, and there was no immediate hope of a better day. A group might think or feel together, and out of the depth of oppression came the songs of sorrow” (Brawley, “Introduction”, 3) The above texts, which belong to the Slave Narrative genre, do have a serious tone. The slave narrative provides a picture into the peculiar institution of American history told by former slaves in their own words. Two of the most notable slave narratives, and autobiographies, are Maryland’s Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself and North Carolina’s Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Jacobs wrote her narrative under the pseudonym Linda Brent). Their story, though from differing gender perspectives, similarly detail life on the slave plantation and their experiences of being black in America. They tell the story of the dehumanization of slavery: how Blacks are treated as sub-human and seen as chattel, as livestock, and how black women are unprotected from white men including the slave owner. Frederick Douglass’ (1817? – 1895) and Harriet Jacob’s (1813 - 1897) narratives chronicle their journey from “the peculiar institution” of slavery toward freedom in the North and pose a challenge to white slaveholding American culture.