February marks Black History Month, when the US and other countries honour and celebrate black people’s contributions and achievements to history at large. In 2022, it comes while a growing number of US parents are alleging that certain schoolbooks offering critical views on topics such as US history or race are obscene or otherwise harmful to children. Our selection of new fiction by black writers illuminates different facets of black experience and is a reminder that reading is one of the best ways to honour and celebrate Black History Month.
Carolina Built by Kianna Alexander
Kianna Alexander novelises the life of American real estate magnate Josephine N Leary in a previously untold story of commitment and perseverance. Leary, determined to build a life of her own and a future for her family after emancipation, moves to Edenton, North Carolina, from the plantation where she was born. She is free, newly married and ready to follow her dreams.
Building a real estate legacy becomes challenging while maintaining a marriage and caring for her daughters, but she pushes forward against all odds. She manages to teach herself to be a businesswoman, to manage her finances and to make smart investments in the local real estate market. But with each passing year, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus on building her legacy from the ground up.
Her story is about daring to dream bigger, tearing down whatever stands in her way and building something better for the loved ones she will leave behind.
Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi
Nigerian-American science fiction writer and former civil rights lawyer Tochi Onyebuchi’s Goliath is a sweeping science fiction epic about survival in the vein of Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven.
In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the crumbling cities of the US for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighbourhoods are being cannibalised. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, turning their homes into quaint reminders for the colonists of the world that they destroyed.
Goliath weaves together the stories of disparate characters — a space-dweller looking at New Haven, Connecticut, as a chance to reconnect with his lover; labourers trying to make a precarious living by reviving crumbling cities; a journalist seeking to capture the violence of the streets; a marshal trying to solve a kidnapping — into a complex montage about race, class, gentrification and who is allowed to be the hero of any history.
Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black
Acclaimed author Daniel Black brings to light the experiences of black fathers and queer sons. Jacob seeks to make amends with his gay son Isaac through letters written on his deathbed in this insightful novel about empathy and forgiveness.
Jacob and Isaac have not met or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know — stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery; secrets from Jacob’s tumultuous relationship with Isaac’s mother and the shame he carries from the dissolution of their family; tragedies that informed Jacob’s role as a father and his reaction to Isaac being gay.
Jacob’s unspoken truths will give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited as the dying man seeks to create a space where he and his son can find peace. An ultimately hopeful story of reconciliation, this one is for fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robert Jones Jr and Alice Walker.
The Last Suspicious Holdout: Stories by Ladee Hubbard
The 12 tales In The Last Suspicious Holdout, the new story collection by award-winning author Ladee Hubbard, chronicle poignant moments in the lives of an African-American community located in a “sliver of southern suburbia”. Set from 1992 to 2007, through the night before President Barack Obama’s inauguration, the stories represent a period during which the black middle-class expanded while stories of welfare queens, crack babies and super predators were all over the media.
In Henry, set in 1993, the title character balances running a bar with advocating for his brother, Leon Moore, whose murder conviction eight years earlier was questioned by members of the community. In False Cognates, a formerly imprisoned attorney struggles with raising the tuition to keep his troubled son in an elite private school. In There He Go, a young girl whose mother moves constantly clings to a photo of the grandfather she doesn’t know but invents stories of his greatness.
Characters spotlighted in one story reappear in another, offering a testament to the enduring resilience of black people as they navigate this “postracial” period that the collection vividly portrays.
When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
A mythic love story set in Trinidad, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel is about outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.
In the old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. She is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: one St Bernard woman in every generation has the power to shepherd the city’s souls into the afterlife. But after years of suffering her mother’s neglect and bitterness, Yejide is looking for a way out.
Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life his mother built for him to provide for them both. Newly sheared of his dreadlocks and his past, and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city alive with possibility and danger.
Yejide and Darwin meet inside the gates of Fidelis, an ancient and sprawling cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A great work of lush imagination and exuberant storytelling, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding and hopeful novel about inheritance, loss and the power of love to heal.
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