African American Anthology

Originally published in 1964, this collection of 16 stories includes three linked sets of stories about the Carey, Bedlow, and Dunford families. They represent the earliest work of William Melvin Kelley and provided a rich source of stories and characters who were to fill out his later novels. Spanning generations from the Deep South during Reconstruction to New York City in the 1960s, these insightful stories depict African American families - their struggles, their heartbreak, and their love.

A striking mosaic of prose, poetry, and dramatic dialogue, Jean Toomer’s Cane has come to be considered a masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance. Structured as a series of vignettes ripe with longing, passion, violence, and revenge, the haunting novel gives a powerful voice to the interior lives of African Americans in the rural South and urban North. Championed for its unsparing honesty and psychological insight by such luminaries as Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, and Maya Angelou, Cane shines as a beacon to generations of African-American writers.

Critics have compared her work to that of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, but J. California Cooper has a warm, witty style that’s definitely her own. Each of her short stories is a gem of downhome wisdom, polished with a bit of gossip, some heartbreak, and lots of humor.

With heart-stopping stories by Zane, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, Joy M. Copeland, Robert Fleming, Terence Taylor, Francine Lewis, Brandon Massey, and 12 other established or up-and-coming writers, Dark Dreams is a must-have contemporary anthology for fans of the supernatural.

In Kenya, when a young American man falls in love with the sophisticated daughter of an African chief, their marriage is strong. But tradition will soon put their union to the supreme test. Gripping and soulful, A Woman's Worth is a tale of cultural divisions, emotional wounds, and a love that struggles to transcend them.

Gospel comedy queen Pat G'orge-Walker regales listeners with the hilarious antics of Sister Betty and her South Carolina friends, big-hearted Ma Cile and redhaired Sister Connie Fuse. But things don't really start shakin' until on-the-make Deacon Laid Handz, manhungry Sister Carrie Onn, and conniving Reverend Knott Enuff Money get into the act. And yet for all of its rollicking humor, this book is brimming with profound and, at times, pointed truths about church life.

The son of Maya Angelou, Guy Johnson is a critically acclaimed author and poet in his own right. Echoes of a Distant Summer is the story of Jackson St. Clair Tremain, a San Francisco civil servant who thought he had left his old life far behind. In 1982, Jackson is summoned to Mexico to confer with his dying grandfather, the brutal hustler King Tremain. When King dies, Jackson inherits $50 million - and the unwanted attentions of a malevolent bayou crime lord named Pug DuMont.

A civil rights activist and key figure in African American literary history, Alice Dunbar-Nelson made her mark during the emerging Harlem Renaissance. Violets and Other Tales is her debut (included here in full, save for three stories later updated in The Goodness of St. Rocque). The collection includes poetry, short stories, and essays offering a varied examination of class differences, racial identity, oppression, intolerance, and women’s societal roles. The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories assembles 14 of Dunbar’s short works of fiction.

The first ever collection of John Edgar Wideman’s most influential essays and articles, five decades of cultural and literary criticism that paint a vivid portrait of America’s changing landscape and chronicle the emergence and evolution of a major presence in fiction. “A towering figure...

The Story of Jamie is a fictitious short story loosely connected to actual events about a young girl named Jamie. She was born in the 1940s, and struggled most of her life to find her true identity. During her many devastating conflicts in life, she cycles through love, pain, and perseverance as she finds happiness while maturing and flourishing into a mother and a wife.

Elegant, profound, and intoxicating—Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo’s first major collection of poetry after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Digest, moves fluidly among considerations of the pro-wrestler Owen Hart; Tituba, the only Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials; MOVE, the movement and militant separatist group famous for its violent stand-offs with the Philadelphia Police Department (“flames rose like orchids . . . / blocks lay open like egg cartons”); and more.

As scholars of African American literature and cultural history, Bennett and McCarthy repeatedly find themselves struck by the number of exciting poets they come across in long-out-of-print collections and forgotten journals, whose work has been neglected and, in some cases, entirely ignored, even by those academic circles devoted to the study of Black poetry. Minor Notes is an excavation initiative that addresses this problem by recovering archival materials from these understudied, though supremely gifted, African American poets of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Roberto "Papa" Huffington. Beloved husband. Father. Friend. This is a very short story in honor of his legacy that he has left behind.

While vacationing in Jamaica, trying to get over a broken heart, Chyna Daniels runs into island native Nelson Portis. On a physical level, Nelson satisfies all of Chyna's wants and needs to help her forget the breakup, but Nelson wants much more. Will Chyna give Nelson the one thing he wants the most? Her Heart.

Situationships is a collection of poems and short stories about everyday relationships. It was written based on real stories from real people. John Holley Jr. interviewed many people of many different ages and backgrounds and used their stories as inspirations. Every story or poem is based off one of their stories and a few of his own.

Afice is the last of nine generations of women who have survived enslavement, sickness, and hunger. Alone at age seventeen, she sets out through the Louisiana swamps to follow the trail of her ancestors and hear their songs anew. On this journey, Afice must decide how to honor her ancestors while embracing her own future.

Mahogany is now coming face to face with the reality of her secrets and lies; she will have life-altering decisions to make soon. Finding new love, having a beautiful family, great friends, her dream career, and financial stability means nothing as she deals with her internal demons. Will her friends and family stick beside her? Will finally turning to God help her, or is she too deep in that it's just too late?

This dynamic collection of Black voices, performed by Tony and Grammy Award-winning actor, rapper, and producer Daveed Diggs and Emmy Award-winning writer, creator, producer, and actor Lena Waithe, works like an incantation of origin, healing, and imagination. Born from a series of conceptual art exhibitions, the perspectives gathered here are nowhere near monochromatic.

"No justice, no peace!" The crowd marched through the streets, chanting as their hearts and minds are weighed down heavily. Each individual’s soul has been tattered and worn. The Black and Brown faces that make up the group all house expressions of anguish, pain, and restlessness. The words—"We the Jury, find the defendant, Tyler Mitchell, not guilty"—sting as they fall upon the ears of those who have gathered on the courthouse steps. Another White male has mercilessly taken innocent and unarmed lives. When will it end?

This small collection of short stories of riveting and dark plots dabbles in politics, religion, martial arts, social identity, and various other facets of life like baby farms, revealing what man proves to be when he tries! Titles include "A Cold One", "Lagos Hustle", "Cornbread, Fried Chicken, and Sauerkraut", "Rest in Peace", "Alpine Nightmare", "My Style Is Better Than Yours", "Furqaan", "Turf", and "The Part: The Re-assassination of Abe Lincoln".