African American English

From the author of The Art of Scandal comes a small town romance about the visibility of Black women’s voices in country music, for readers of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev. Every Thursday night, former country music heartthrob Luke Randall has to sing “Another Love Song.” God, he hates...

A Good Morning America Buzz Pick “A love story like no other, and this one…will have you gripped from page one.” —Vogue “An unabashed ode to living with, and despite, pain and mortality.” —The New York Times Book Review A New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award...

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 enslaved people 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.

Winner of the 2019 American Association for the History of Nursing Lavinia L. Dock Award for Exemplary Historical Research and Writing in a Book.

“Catchin’ babies” was merely one aspect of the broad role of African American midwives in the twentieth-century South. Yet, little has been written about the type of care they provided or how midwifery and maternity care evolved under the increasing presence of local and federal health care structures.

A student will find that the hardest lessons sometimes come from outside the classroom in this stunning dark academia novel from the acclaimed author of The Year of the Witching and House of Hunger. Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart. Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her...

“Bold and imaginative.” —Tananarive Due “This stunning allegory will spark much discussion.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A truly powerful and riveting story.” —Booklist In a world without white people, what does it mean to be Black? One day, a cataclysmic event occurs...

The classic, “gripping” (New York Times) history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of enslaved people Winner of the Avery O. Craven Prize from the Organization of American Historians Winner of the Sidney Hillman Prize “A stinging indictment of slavery...

Some of Today's Leading Black Voices—Including 3 Oscar Winners, 23 Grammy Winners, 8 Emmy Winners, and 5 Golden Globe Winners—Performing Today’s New International Version (TNIV) This ambitious and critically-acclaimed presentation of the Bible is set to an original musical...

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Series! The interwoven destinies of the people of Meridian will finally be determined in this “stunning, fevered conclusion” (NPR) to New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky trilogy. Even the sea cannot stay calm before...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Eric Thomas moves, inspires, encourages, and challenges people to reach their full potential. You Owe You is flat-out brilliant, and he ain’t lied yet!”—Deion Sanders, Coach Prime No matter your story or your struggle, Eric Thomas—celebrated...

A shy bookworm enlists her charming neighbor to help her score a date, not knowing he’s the obscure author she’s been corresponding with, in this sparkling and heart-fluttering romance by Kristina Forest. Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared...

A renowned midwife, doula trainer, and Master of Public Health celebrates the lost art of African American postnatal healing practices in this practical, essential guide to maternal health. As a mother, grandmother, and traditional midwife, Shafia M. Monroe intimately knows about childbirth and...

In Jezebel Unhinged Tamura Lomax traces the use of the jezebel trope in the Black church and in Black popular culture, showing how it is pivotal to reinforcing men's cultural and institutional power to discipline and define Black girlhood and womanhood. Drawing on writing by medieval thinkers and travelers, Enlightenment theories of race, the commodification of women's bodies under slavery, and the work of Tyler Perry and Bishop T. D. Jakes, Lomax shows how Black women are written into religious and cultural history as sites of sexual deviation.

From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in...

Motherhood isn’t easy, especially when you’re a mother of a Black son. Ten years ago, Cheryl jumped at the chance to send her son, Javonte, to an exclusive boarding school in New England - far away from Atlanta and the violence of the city streets. It was the American dream, or was it? Now settled in Vermont, Javonte is married and well-employed, but Cheryl hardly ever sees him, and when she does, her own son seems like someone she only used to know.

As a young man, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. He wrote three versions of his autobiography over the course of his lifetime and published his own newspaper. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence, he bore witness to the brutality of slavery.