Contemporary Black Fiction

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Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Separated by differing ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London until the pair is reunited in their homeland fifteen years later.
When We Were Birds
by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

The introduction of a singularly stunning new voice in fiction, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's When We Were Birds is a mythic love story set in contemporary Trinidad & Tobago about two young outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.
The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett

Separated by their embrace of different racial identities, two mixed-race identical twins reevaluate their choices as one raises a black daughter in their southern hometown while the other passes for white with a husband who is unaware of her heritage.
Speaking of Summer
by Kalisha Buckhanon

On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer's twin sister Summer walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again, the door to the roof is locked, and no footsteps are found. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing woman, Autumn must pursue answers on her own, all while grieving her mother's recent death. With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. She falls into an affair with Summer's boyfriend to cope with the disappearance ofa woman they both loved. But the loss becomes too great, the mystery too inexplicable, and Autumn starts to unravel, all the while becoming obsessed with murdered women and the men who kill them.
The Water Dancer
by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage--and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child--but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn't understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram's private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation family, Thena, his chosen mother, a woman of few words and many secrets, and Sophia, a young woman fighting her own war even as she and Hiram fall in love, he becomes determined to escape the only home he's ever known. So begins an unexpected journey into the covert war on slavery that takes Hiram from thecorrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he's enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind--but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss. 
Blacktop Wasteland
by S. A. Cosby

Beauregard “Bug” Montage is an honest mechanic, a loving husband, and a hard-working dad. Bug knows there’s no future in the man he used to be: known from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida as the best wheelman on the East Coast.

He thought he'd left all that behind him, but as his carefully built new life begins to crumble, he finds himself drawn inexorably back into a world of blood and bullets. When a smooth-talking former associate comes calling with a can't-miss jewelry store heist, Bug feels he has no choice but to get back in the driver's seat. And Bug is at his best where the scent of gasoline mixes with the smell of fear.

Haunted by the ghost of who he used to be and the father who disappeared when he needed him most, Bug must find a way to navigate this blacktop wasteland . . . or die trying.
The Girl with the Louding Voice 
by Abi Daré

Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who longs for an education, must find a way for her voice to be heard loud and clear in a world where she and other girls like her are taught to believe, through words and deeds, that they are nothing.
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
by Akwaeke Emezi

Learning how to feel joy while healing from loss, Feyi Adekola starts dating the perfect guy, but discovers she has feelings for someone else who is off limits and must decide just how far she is willing to go for a second chance at love.
Missing White Woman
by Kellye Garrett

The truth is never skin deep. It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna's new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything--the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury rowhouse in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. But when Bree comes downstairs their final morning, she's shocked. There's a stranger laying dead in the foyer, and Ty is nowhere to be found. A Black woman alone in a new city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth--especially when it becomes clear the dead woman is none other than Janelle Beckett, the missing woman the entire Internet has become obsessed with. There's only one person Bree can turn to: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past. As the police and a social media mob close in, all looking for #JusticeForJanelle, Bree realizes that the only way she can help Ty--or herself--is to figure out what really happened that last night. But when people only see what they want to see, can she uncover the truth hiding in plain sight?
By the Book
by Jasmine Guillory

A young, black woman working in publishing makes a surprise connection with an author who has failed to deliver his highly anticipated manuscript, in the second novel of the series following If the Shoe Fits.
Maame
by Jessica George

Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman. It's fair to say that Maddie's life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson's. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she's ready to experience some important "firsts": She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils--and rewards--of putting her heart on the line. 
What the Fireflies Knew
by Kai Harris

Told from the perspective of almost 11-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB), this coming-of-age novel follows KB as she is sent to live with her estranged grandfather where she, as everything and everyone changes around her, is forced to carve out a different identity for herself and find her own voice.
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

To come to terms with who she is and what she wants, Ailey, the daughter of an accomplished doctor and a strict schoolteacher, embarks on a journey through her family’s past, helping her embrace her full heritage, which is the story of the Black experience in itself.
The City We Became
by N. K. Jemisin

Five New Yorkers must come together in order to save their city from destruction in the first book of a stunning new series by Hugo award-winning and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She's got six. When a young man crosses the bridge into New York City, something changes. He doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can feel the pulse of the city, can see its history, can access its magic. And he's not the only one. All across the boroughs, strange things are happening. Something is threatening to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
The Prophets
by Robert Jones

Two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation find refuge in each other while transforming a quiet shed into a haven for their fellow slaves, before an enslaved preacher declares their bond sinful.
How Beautiful We Were
by Imbolo Mbue

A young revolutionary risks everything to secure her peoples freedom when her small African village is decimated by an American oil company that reneges on promises of reparation.
Five-carat Soul
by James McBride

The National Book Award-winning author presents a never-before-published collection of stories that are funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable and imaginative and authentic, and explore the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. (story collections). Simultaneous.
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
by Terry McMillan

In a best-selling novel by the author of Waiting to Exhale, Stella, a sexy, sassy, and successful African-American woman, describes how an affair with a younger man transforms her life. Reprint.
Nightcrawling
by Leila Mottley

When a drunken altercation with a stranger turns into a job she desperately needs, Kiara, who supports her brother and an abandoned 9-year-old boy, starts nightcrawling until her name surfaces in an investigation exposing her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
Last Seen in Lapaz
by Kwei Quartey

While searching for Ngozi, the missing daughter of her boss's old friend, PI Emma Djan is led to Accra where she stumbles upon a murder and a network of sex traffickers across West Africa, and, to save Ngozi from suffering the same fate, goes deep undercover.
Pardon My Frenchie
by Farrah Rochon

Ashanti Wright is ecstatic over the success of her dog boarding business, Barkingham Palace. In fact, it has become so successful that Ashanti has plans to expand her empire with a doggie bake shop. There's just one problem, the building she's had her eye on has just been sold to the surly grandson of one of her favorite customers. Thaddeus Sims is not a dog person. He's barely a person's person. But when his grandmother is transferred to a senior living facility that doesn't accept pets, the former army officer agrees to care for her annoying Standard Poodle, Puddin'. After all, it was with his grandmother's help that Thad was able to buy the building that will soon house The PX, a sports bar/all-around hangout space for former servicemen that he plansto open. Puddin' and Ashanti's French Bulldog, Duchess, have become a bit of a sensation on Barkingham Palace's livestream because of their budding romance. When a video of the dogs sharing a doggy treat Lady and the Tramp-style goes viral, their owners are sucked into a media frenzy that captures the nation by storm...and creates some sparks for their owners too.
The Furrows
by Namwali Serpell

Haunted by the accidental death of her little brother Wayne years ago, Cassandra Williams begins seeing her brother everywhere and meets a man both mysterious and familiar who is also searching for someone and for his own place in the world; his name is Wayne.
The Violin Conspiracy
by Brendan Slocumb

When, right before the cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition, the Olympics of classical music, his priceless Stradivarius is stolen, with a ransom note for five million dollars in its place, Ray McMillian must piece together the clues to reclaim the violin before it's too late.
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith

Set in post-war London, this novel of the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England.
Salvage the Bones
by Jesmyn Ward

Enduring a hardscrabble existence as the children of alcoholic and absent parents, four siblings from a coastal Mississippi town prepare their meager stores for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina while struggling with such challenges as a teen pregnancy and a dying litter of prize puppies.
Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm
by Laura Warrell

When he discovers free-spirited drummer Maggie, the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, is pregnant by him, 40-year-old trumpet player and old-school ladies' man who refuses to be tied down, Circus Palmer flees, setting off a chain of interlocking revelations from the various women in his life.
Memorial
by Bryan Washington

Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years -- good years -- but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.

But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.
Perish
by LaToya Watkins

This sweeping family saga about a Black Texan family, which spans decades and is told in alternate chapters, follows four members of the Turner clan as they, called home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother, must decide who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.
Saving Ruby King
by Catherine Adel West

In the South Side of Chicago, a young woman is determined to protect her best friend and a deadly secret that threatens to undermine both of their families.
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead

(2020 winner)

Follows the experiences of two African-American teenagers at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
Red at the Bone
by Jacqueline Woodson

Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony -- a celebration that ultimately never took place.
Black Cake
by Charmaine Wilkerson

Two estranged siblings try to reclaim the closeness they once shared while trying to piece together their late mother's life story and fulfill her last request of sharing a traditional Caribbean black cake "when the time is right."
Another Brooklyn
by Jacqueline Woodson

Torn between the fantasies of her youth and the realities of a life marked by violence and abandonment, August reunites with a beloved old friend who challenges her to reconcile her past and come to terms with the difficulties that forced her to grow up too quickly
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