Hi all, I need your book support! ✨
I need recommendations for Black books. And by that I mean Black authors writing about Black main characters (or themselves, in case of autobiography). Open to any genre. Preferably female authors and female characters as well as romance not being the main story focus – don’t let the preferences stop you from recommending your favorite book though. Give me stories from Africa, the Caribbean, global African diaspora, the Americas, etc.
Please, if possible, use this format for your recommendations:
Book title
Author
Genre(s)/main story focus
Geographical Setting
Gender of main character
What you loved about the book
(E.g.
Purple Clouds
Rosy J. Ngazi
Mythology
Tanzania
Female
I loved the intertwining of real history with local spiritual beliefs. The struggle of the main character against cultural expectations and her breaking free of the constraints of those expectations to realize her visions.)
If that’s too much work for you, just do as you would normally and I’ll make it work. But I’ll especially appreciate it if you try to follow the format as I’ll be copy/pasting everyone’s recommendations into a master document to work with later 🤓
I’m hoping to gather at least 52 book recommendations that I can take into 2026. Thanks y’all! 🥰
by uydutx
7 Comments
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison. Literary fiction, male main character, ,USA (1950s). Absolutely searing writing about racism in America, particularly within the ranks of the US Communist party profiting from the main character’s charisma. A touch of Surrealism, too.
Kindred, Octavia Butler, Sci Fi/Speculative Fiction, Exploration of race through history, LA/Maryland, Female, Fast-paced, has time travel but otherwise light on the sci fi. Standalone novel, a good intro to her work.
My copy of Giovanni’s Room is entirely black.
The reformatory by Tananarive due
It’s historical fiction based on her family memeber and the dozier school for boys (both black and white boys) but main character is a black boy based on the authors relative
[the reformatory](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62919847)
The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.
Gracetown, Florida
June 1950
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.
*Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner * New York Times Notable Book * Locus Award Finalist * Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and the Shirley Jackson Award *
“You’re in for a treat…one of those books you can’t put down…Due hit it out of the park.” —Stephen King
A gripping, page-turning “masterpiece” (Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman) set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor. Setting is both space and a future Africa. This is actually the first in a series of novellas about an African young woman who is traveling to a very selective intergalactic university and meets some very unexpected problems along the way. It’s set in a technologically advanced future and is focused strongly on character and culture. I loved it because the main character is both incredibly talented and still a young woman with so much of her own identity to negotiate.
Homegoing, and no
I have some older rec lists [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/f5rwjp/book_list_black_authors_and_black_main_characters/fi0vsxu/) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackReaders/comments/h9n8o1/fiction_books_featuring_black_women_but_no/fuxtur7/) for SFF and [here for nonfiction](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/1kagmyp/what_are_your_favorite_books_by_black_women/mpp8vw4/). All are by black authors (mostly women) and about black people.