BLACK VOICES2020 is newsletter features books by contemporary Black authors, across all genres and ages. It is not an exhaustive list, but you will nd both individually highlighted books and lists with more authors and titles to discover. Be sure to visit each author’s website to learn more about them. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead An American Marriage by Tayari Jones Elwood Curtis is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of the American Dream. But the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake lands him in a juve- as they settle into their life together, Roy is sentenced to twelve years for a crime nile reformatory called the Nickel Academy. In reality, the Academy is a grotesque Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Unmoored, Celestial takes comfort in her friend chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students. Andre, and becomes unable to hold on to the love that has been her center as Roy’s More books to check out by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Colson Whitehead in- time in prison passes. But after fi ve years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, clude The Underground Railroad, The Noble Hustle, Zone One, Sag Harbor, Apex and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. Also check out Jones’ Hides the Hurt, John Henry Days, and The Intuitionist. Anchor $15.95. books Silver Sparrow, The Untelling, and Leaving Atlanta. Algonquin $16.95. Navigate Your Stars by Jesmyn Ward The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett For Tulane University’s 2018 commencement, two-time National Book Award-win- The Vignes are identical twins. But after growing up in a small, southern black com- ner Jesmyn Ward delivered a stirring speech about hard work and respect, inspiring munity, their lives diverge as adults. One sister lives with her black daughter in the the audience with her meditation on tenacity in the face of hardship. Now, in book town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband form, her words will inspire readers as they prepare for their next chapters in life, knows nothing of her past. Still, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will whether graduating from college or embarking on a different kind of journey. Don’t happen when their daughters’ storylines intersect? Brit Bennett produces a story miss her other books: Sing, Unburied, Sing, Where the Line Bleeds, The Fire This Time, that is a riveting family narrative and an exploration of the American history of pass- Men We Reaped, and Salvage the Bones. Scribner $16. ing. Be sure to read Bennett’s The Mothers as well. Riverhead $27. Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah re- Five New Yorkers must defend their city from an ancient evil in this new novel by veals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and wom- Hugo Award-winner N.K. Jemisin. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient en contend with every day in this country. These stories tackle urgent in- as myths, and others are new and destructive. New York City has six, and a roiling stances of racism and cultural unrest, and explore the many ways we fi ght for evil threatens to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars unless they can come humanity in an unforgiving world. Entirely fresh, and sure to appeal to fans of together and stop it. This is the fi rst book in The Great Cities Trilogy. Other Jemisin Colson Whitehead and George Saunders, Friday Black confronts readers with a books not to miss: The Inheritance Trilogy, How Long ‘til Black Future Month?, The chorus of emotions, the fi nal note of which, remarkably, is hope. Mariner $14.99. Dreamblood Duology, and The Broken Earth Trilogy. Orbit $28. Double your impact by purchasing your books from your neighborhood independent bookstore, either in-store, over the phone Shop or email, or order through their website. If you don’t know your local store, visit IndieBound.org to fi nd an independent bookshop Local near you. If you prefer audiobooks, fi nd your titles at Libro.fm, and select the community bookstore you would like to shop with. FICTION POETRY American Spy The Tradition by Lauren Wilkinson by Jericho Brown It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book details the is an offi cer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. So the past and the personal. Brown’s poetic concerns are when she’s asked to join a task force aimed at under- at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: mining Sankara, the revolutionary president of Burkina What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom Faso, she says yes, even though she admires his work. truly lie? Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queer- Marie observes Sankara, seduces him, and ultimately ness, worship, and trauma are propelled into stunning has a hand in bringing him down. But doing so changes clarity by Brown’s invention of the duplex—a combina- everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, tion of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues. Other books a lover, a sister, and a good American. Random House not to miss: The New Testament and Please. Copper Can- Trade $17. yon $29.99. Deacon King Kong American Sonnets For My by James McBride Past and Future Assassin In September 1969, a cranky old church deacon shuf- by Terrance Hayes fl es into the Cause Houses housing project in Brooklyn, In seventy poems, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings and in front of everybody shoots the project’s drug deal- of American, assassin, and love in the sonnet form. Writ- er. The reasons for this violence and its consequences lie ten during the fi rst 200 days of the Trump presidency, at the heart of this funny, moving novel, bringing to life these poems are haunted by the country’s past and future the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Inventive, who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops, the compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered— church members, and more. Other McBride books: The the wonders of this collection are irreducible and stun- Good Lord Bird, Five-Carat Soul, Kill ‘Em and Leave, ning. Read more by Hayes: How to Be Drawn, Lighthead, Song Yet Sung, Miracle at St. Anna, and The Color of Wa- Wind in a Box, Hip Logic, Muscular Music, and the essay ter. Riverhead $28. collection To Float in the Space Between. Penguin $18. Trouble Is What I Do Homie by Walter Mosley by Danez Smith Morally ambiguous P.I. Leonid McGill is back investigat- Homie is Danez Smith’s magnifi cent anthem about the ing crimes against society’s downtrodden. In this install- saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss of one of ment of the beloved detective series, 92-year-old Missis- Smith’s close friends, this book comes out of the search sippi bluesman Phillip “Catfi sh” Worry enlists Leonid’s for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem help to reveal the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and scarce and getting scarcer, and it can be hard to survive, her corrupt father. Mosley is the author of more than 43 and even harder to remember reasons for living. But critically acclaimed books, including The Easy Rawlins then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the win- Mysteries. His work has been translated into 23 languag- dow, and family—blood and chosen—arrives with just es and includes literary fi ction, science fi ction, political the right food and some redemption. Other collections monographs, and a young adult novel. Mulholland $24. include Don’t Call Us Dead, Black Movie, and [insert] boy. Graywolf $16. Ghost Summer: Stories by Tananarive Due Additional Titles Whether weaving family life and history into dark fi ction Bitter Root by David Walker and Chuck Brown, or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book illus. by Sanford Greene Award winner and Essence bestselling author Tanan- A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib arive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening. In Still Can’t Do My Daughter’s Hair by William Evans this collection of her short fi ction, Due takes us to Grace- Honeyfi sh by Lauren K. Alleyne town, a small Florida town that has both literal and fi gu- The Revisioners rative ghosts; into future scenarios that seem all too real; by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives The Yellow House by Sarah Broom are touched by Otherness. Other books by Due: My Soul Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid to Keep, The Good House, and many more. Prime $15.95. The Farm by Joanne Ramos Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue The Changeling by Victor Lavalle 2 SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND COMICS My Mother’s House House of Whispers Vol. 2: Ananse by Francesca Momplaisir by Nalo Hopkinson and Dan Watters For fans of Mehsin Hamid, Kate Atkinson, and illus. by Dominike Stanton Jesmyn Ward: a literary thriller about the underbel- The souls trapped in the Dreaming are restless, seeking ly of the immigrant American dream and the ripple help to escape their “predeceased” state.