Six Books for Black History Month

For Black History Month, we share six new and forthcoming books by Black authors we’re excited about. Whether you love fiction, poetry, or memoir, theses books offer powerful perspectives on identity, history, and resilience.

Find them below, along with a list of more books to check out.

A graphic with six book covers: A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar; Cotton Blues by Edem Awumey, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott; Echo-Mirror by Klyde Broox; Subterrane by Valérie Bah; Born to Walk by Alpha Nkuranga; and Perfect Little Angels by Vincent Anioke.

By:

Share It:

The cover Subterrane by Valerie Bah.

Subterrane by Valérie Bah (October 2024)
Véhicule Press

Fiction

After reading and loving Kama Le Mackerel’s translation of Valérie Bah’s The Rage Letters, we couldn’t wait to dip into Bah’s newest offering: Subterrane. In this speculative comedy, readers get a glimpse into the rich inner-world of Black and queer characters—the hair braiders, tattoo artists, holistic healers, weed dealers, and sidewalk horticulturists struggling to make a life in New Stockholm, a metropolis like any other in North America. The novel’s protagonist, Zeynab, finds herself drawn to the city’s margins where creatives and other anti-capitalist characters increasingly find themselves pushed into demeaning, dead-end jobs. Here, Zeynab investigates the mysterious demise of Doudou Laguerre, whose death may be related to his activism against a construction project.

The cover of Perfect Little Angels by Vincent Anioke.

Perfect Little Angels by Vincent Anioke (April 2024)
Arsenal Pulp Press

Short Stories

Shortlisted for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers, Vincent Anioke’s collection of stories has gotten a lot of praise for its compelling characters and its nuanced exploration of masculinity, marginalization, and suppressed queerness. Set largely in Nigeria, the stories focus on characters that look for love various ways from parental dynamics to a higher power. This is a deeply moving and powerful collection—plot twists, violence and struggle, love and redemption, and vivid, gripping prose—Anioke’s debut has it all.

The cover of Cotton Blues by Edem Awumey.

Cotton Blues by Edem Awumey, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott (October 2024)
Mawenzi House

Fiction/Translation

Translated from French, Cotton Blues is set in an African town between the Sahel and the Atlantic coast where cotton farmer Toby Kunta takes a Berlin journalist hostage in a museum, demanding compensation for himself and other farmers devastated by genetically modified cotton. As tensions rise and police surround the building, Kunta starts burning the exhibited works, threatening to do the same to his prisoner. 

Edem Awumey takes readers on a journey along the global cotton trade, from African savannahs to the American South, from Berlin’s elite circles to the fields of Indian Rajasthan sprayed with glyphosate. It’s a powerful story of resistance against multinational control and a long-suppressed cry for freedom that erupts in a desperate fight for justice.

The cover of A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar.

A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar
(April 2025)
Invisible Publishing

Fiction

This forthcoming debut novel from writer, physician, and filmmaker Reem Gaafar is on our radar for many reasons: rave reviews, an Island Prize win, and an intriguing premise. Gaafar’s novel promises to be a socio-political commentary set in a small farming village in North Sudan and the big city of Khartoum where the lives of three women are intertwined as they struggle against societal constraints and a looming civil war.

The cover of Echo-Mirror by Klyde Broox.

Echo-Mirror by Klyde Broox
(March 2025)
Wolsak and Wynn

Poetry

If dub poetry is your jam, Klyde Broox’s collection is a rich offering of his poetry over the decades. In his long-awaited collection, he confronts the necessity of writing in English, inequality, and other injustices with striking imagery and strong rhythms, while also offering heartfelt reflections on family and loss. These poems challenge the status quo, honour Black voices, and serve as a passionate call to action.

The cover of Born to Walk by Alpha Nkuranga.

Born to Walk by Alpha Nkuranga
(September 2024)
Goose Lane Editions

Memoir

When Alpha Nkuranga was just eight-years-old, she made the life-changing decision to flee her grandparents’ house in Rwanda where she lived with her family, to escape the raging war in her hometown. With her younger brother, Elijah, in tow she hid in a swamp before joining a group of refugees, who were fleeing to Tanzania. “If I kept walking,” Alpha remembers thinking, “I could tell my story.” Now, Nkuranga lives in Canada, working with women and children who face abuse and homelessness. Born to Walk is a powerful story of a young girl’s determination to survive and her unwavering spirit of resistance.

Find more books by Black authors here.