Best African American Literature

*WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for FICTION. *A TIME MAGAZINE BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 OF 2017. *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize. *Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal *Publishers Weekly Top 10 of 2017. *Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award “The heart of Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing is story—the yearning for a narrative to help us understand ourselves, the pain of the gaps we’ll never fill, the truths that are failed by words and must be translated through ritual and song...Ward’s writing throbs with life, grief, and love, and this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it.” — Buzzfeed. An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi’s past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power—and limitations—of family bonds. When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. Set on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi (a place rich in oil rigs and atmosphere, if almost nothing else), the book’s Southern gothic aura recalls the dense, head-spinning prose of William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor. It combines aspects of the American road novel and the ghost story with a timely treatment of the long aftershocks of a hurricane and the opioid epidemic devouring rural America." On a real and metaphorical road of secrets and sorrows, the story shifts narrators — from Jojo to Leonie to Richie, a doomed boy from his grandfather’s fractured past — as they crash into both the ghosts that stalk them, as well as the disquieting ways these characters haunt themselves." Sing , which is longlisted for a 2017 National Book Award, establishes Ward as one of the most poetic writers in the conversation about America’s unfinished business in the black South." The length and music of Ward’s sentences owe much to her love of catalogues, extended similes, imagistic fragments, and emphasis by way of repetition ... "[A] tour de force ... Ward is an attentive and precise writer who dazzles with natural and supernatural observations and lyrical details ... she continues telling stories we need to hear with rare clarity and power." "The novel is built around an arduous car trip: A black woman and her two children drive to a prison to pick up their white father. As soon as they leave the relative safety of their backwoods farm, the snares and temptations of the outside world crowd in, threatening to derail their trip or cast them into some fresh ordeal ....

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Best book of the year from Vulture, The Strand Magazine, Southern Living, Bolo Books, Publisher's Weekly, Book Riot, The Guardian , Lit Hub , The Boston Globe , Dallas News , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , Minnesota Public Radio, Texas Monthly, The Daily Beast , and the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "Locke writes in a blues-infused idiom that lends a strain of melancholy and a sense of loss to her lyrical style. "― Marilyn Stasio , New York Times Book Review. A rich sense of place and relentless feeling of dread permeate Attica Locke's heartbreakingly resonant new novel about race and justice in America. It rises above "left and right" and "black and white" and follows the threads that inevitably bind us together, even as we rip them apart. This is a layered portrait of a black man confronting his own racial ambivalence and ambition told with a pointed and poignant bluesy lyricism. a story told with Locke's crystal-clear vision and pleasurably elemental prose. Ranger Darren Mathews is tough, honor-bound, and profoundly alive in corrupt world. "Few contemporary writers have portrayed black Southern life with as much wit and heart-pounding drama as Attica Locke. A dazzling work of rural noir that throws into question whether justice can be equally served on both sides of the race line. "Locke pens a poignant love letter to the lazy red-dirt roads and Piney Woods that serve as a backdrop to a noir thriller as murky as the bayous and bloodlines that thread through the region. She is adept at crafting characters who don't easily fit the archetypes of good and evil, but exist in the thick grayness of humanness, the knotty demands of loyalties and the baseness of survival. Locke holds up the mirror of the racial debate in America and shows us how the light bends and fractures what is right, wrong and what simply is the way it is--but perhaps not as it should be.

With her beautiful face, full hips and round backside, nothing stands in the way of her confidence. He often wonders if Pita is good enough to settle down with or should he forgive the woman who caused him heartache and pain. Tyshae Owens, is a beautiful and smart nail technician at Luxury Tea. The saying is true, “what glitters isn’t gold.” Will she stay or will she move on to someone who can offer her the love she deserves?

Denzel Washington’s film adaptation received nominations for awards from the Academy Awards, African-American Film Critics Association, American Film Institute, Critics' Choice Movie Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and NAACP Image Awards, among others. His second play, Fences , won numerous awards for best play of the year, 1987, including the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. It's a must-read for anyone whoenjoys Antebellum historical fiction or is looking for a compellingstory to add to their book club reading list." Then the image of Lisbeth, a white baby, breastfeeding in the loving arms of Mattie, an enslaved wetnurse came to me in a flash. Then I imagined what the experience would be like for Miss Anne, the birth mother, to have her own child twist away from her to get into Mattie's arms.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Best book of the year from Vulture, The Strand Magazine, Southern Living, Bolo Books, Publisher's Weekly, Book Riot, The Guardian , Lit Hub , The Boston Globe , Dallas News , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , Minnesota Public Radio, Texas Monthly, The Daily Beast , and the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "Locke writes in a blues-infused idiom that lends a strain of melancholy and a sense of loss to her lyrical style. "― Marilyn Stasio , New York Times Book Review. A rich sense of place and relentless feeling of dread permeate Attica Locke's heartbreakingly resonant new novel about race and justice in America. It rises above "left and right" and "black and white" and follows the threads that inevitably bind us together, even as we rip them apart. This is a layered portrait of a black man confronting his own racial ambivalence and ambition told with a pointed and poignant bluesy lyricism. a story told with Locke's crystal-clear vision and pleasurably elemental prose. Ranger Darren Mathews is tough, honor-bound, and profoundly alive in corrupt world. "Few contemporary writers have portrayed black Southern life with as much wit and heart-pounding drama as Attica Locke. A dazzling work of rural noir that throws into question whether justice can be equally served on both sides of the race line. "Locke pens a poignant love letter to the lazy red-dirt roads and Piney Woods that serve as a backdrop to a noir thriller as murky as the bayous and bloodlines that thread through the region. She is adept at crafting characters who don't easily fit the archetypes of good and evil, but exist in the thick grayness of humanness, the knotty demands of loyalties and the baseness of survival. Locke holds up the mirror of the racial debate in America and shows us how the light bends and fractures what is right, wrong and what simply is the way it is--but perhaps not as it should be.

Relationships, love, pain, and fortitude are powerfully rendered in his poetry, and his message of perseverance in the face of emotional turmoil cuts to the heart of modern-day life. After returning to the northeast and moving to New York in pursuit of love, the young modern poet found that and much more.

Rakia, was left to die in the bathroom at her grandmother’s repast by none other than her evil cousin, Cara. Find out in this explosive FINALE if Zaire succeeds in avenging the death of his brother.

With her beautiful face, full hips and round backside, nothing stands in the way of her confidence. He often wonders if Pita is good enough to settle down with or should he forgive the woman who caused him heartache and pain. Tyshae Owens, is a beautiful and smart nail technician at Luxury Tea. The saying is true, “what glitters isn’t gold.” Will she stay or will she move on to someone who can offer her the love she deserves?

With her beautiful face, full hips and round backside, nothing stands in the way of her confidence. He often wonders if Pita is good enough to settle down with or should he forgive the woman who caused him heartache and pain. Tyshae Owens, is a beautiful and smart nail technician at Luxury Tea. The saying is true, “what glitters isn’t gold.” Will she stay or will she move on to someone who can offer her the love she deserves?

*WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for FICTION. *A TIME MAGAZINE BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 OF 2017. *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize. *Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal *Publishers Weekly Top 10 of 2017 “The heart of Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing is story—the yearning for a narrative to help us understand ourselves, the pain of the gaps we’ll never fill, the truths that are failed by words and must be translated through ritual and song...Ward’s writing throbs with life, grief, and love, and this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it.” — Buzzfeed. An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi’s past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power—and limitations—of family bonds. When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. Set on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi (a place rich in oil rigs and atmosphere, if almost nothing else), the book’s Southern gothic aura recalls the dense, head-spinning prose of William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor. It combines aspects of the American road novel and the ghost story with a timely treatment of the long aftershocks of a hurricane and the opioid epidemic devouring rural America." On a real and metaphorical road of secrets and sorrows, the story shifts narrators — from Jojo to Leonie to Richie, a doomed boy from his grandfather’s fractured past — as they crash into both the ghosts that stalk them, as well as the disquieting ways these characters haunt themselves." Sing , which is longlisted for a 2017 National Book Award, establishes Ward as one of the most poetic writers in the conversation about America’s unfinished business in the black South." The length and music of Ward’s sentences owe much to her love of catalogues, extended similes, imagistic fragments, and emphasis by way of repetition ... "[A] tour de force ... Ward is an attentive and precise writer who dazzles with natural and supernatural observations and lyrical details ... she continues telling stories we need to hear with rare clarity and power." "The novel is built around an arduous car trip: A black woman and her two children drive to a prison to pick up their white father. As soon as they leave the relative safety of their backwoods farm, the snares and temptations of the outside world crowd in, threatening to derail their trip or cast them into some fresh ordeal ....