Y
Hackney Libraries
A-Z of
Black Writers
LGBT A-Z of Gay Literature 1
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
1
The Black contribution to
writing has been active
since writing began. Here
is a brief alphabet to begin
your exploration…
Chinua Achebe 1930 – 2013
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie b. 1977
Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet,
professor, and critic. His first work, Things Fall Apart,
which was published in 1958, was hugely influential
and has been translated into over forty languages.
Achebe’s subsequent novels include No Longer at Ease,
published in 1960, Arrow of God, published in 1964,
A Man of the People, published in 1966 and Anthills
of the Savannah, which was published in 1987 and
shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist.
Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus which was published
in 2003, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for
Best First Book and her second novel, Half of a Yellow
Sun which was published in 2006 won the 2007
Orange Prize for Fiction. Her third book is a collection
of short stories published in 2009 called The Thing
Around Your Neck which was shortlisted for the 2009
John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial Prize and the 2010
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
His work also includes the volumes of poetry Beware,
Soul Brother, first published in 1971 and Christmas in
Biafra, published in 1973, the short story collection
Girls at War, also published in 1973 and the children’s
book How the Leopard Got His Claws, published in
1972. The style of Achebe’s fiction writing drew
heavily on the oral tradition of the Igbo people
as he wove folk tales into the fabric of his stories,
illuminating community values in both the content
and form of his storytelling.
Adichie credits Chinua Achebe, Igbo author of Nigerian
masterwork Things Fall Apart, with her literary success.
She once lived in Achebe’s house and believes his halo
surrounded her. After reading his book at 10 years old,
she realized that people who looked like her could exist
in books. Her desire to write was sparked by his work.
In 2010 Adichie was selected as one of The New
Yorker’s “20 Under 40” writers.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Ama Ata Aidoo b. 1942
Julia Alvarez b. 1950
Maya Angelou b. 1928
Reinaldo Arenas 1943 – 1990
Professor Ama Ata Aidoo is a Ghanaian author,
playwright and academic. Aidoo’s works of fiction
particularly deal with the tension between Western
and African world views. She won early recognition
with a problem play, The Dilemma of a Ghost in 1965,
followed by a collection of short stories No Sweetness
Here published in 1970 in which she exercised the oral
element of storytelling, writing tales that are meant to
be read aloud.
Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American poet, novelist,
and essayist. The theme of being caught between two
cultures can be found throughout Alvarez’s work. She
explored this in her first novel, How the García Girls
Lost Their Accents which was published in 1991.
Maya Angelou is an American poet and prize winning
memoirist who’s best selling memoir about her
childhood and young adult years I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings made her an international literary
star. Angelou has written several autobiographies
since, including All God’s Children Need Traveling
Shoes and A Song Flung Up to Heaven, but the most
popular of which has consistently been I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings. In 1971, her volume of poetry,
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die was
nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993, she wrote a
poem for President Clinton’s inauguration and in 2008,
she earned a NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People) Award.
Reinaldo Arenas was a Cuban poet, novelist, and
playwright who after being persecuted for his
homosexuality by the Castro regime that he had once
championed, grew critical of and then rebelled against
the Cuban government. Despite his short life, Arenas
produced a significant body of work. In addition to
significant poetic efforts (“El Central”, “Leprosorio”),
his Pentagonia (‘The Five Agonies’) is the collective
title of a set of five novels written from the mid1960s through the late 1980s, that comprise a “secret
history” of post-revolutionary Cuba.
In 1977, she published her novel, Our Sister Killjoy; or,
Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint, which remains
one of her most popular works. In 1986 Aidoo
published Someone Talking to Sometime, a collection
of poetry and followed this with a collection of
children’s stories The Eagle and the Chickens in 1986,
Birds and Other Poems in 1987 and the novel Changes:
A Love Story in 1991, which went on to win the 1992
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book.
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Her reading audience continued to grow with her
second novel, In the Time of Butterflies, published
in 1994. Several more acclaimed works of fiction
followed such as Yo!, which was published in 1997 and
selected as a notable book by the American Library
Association in 1998, Before We Were Free, which
was published in 2002 and won the Belpre Medal (a
recognition presented to a Latino or Latina writer and
illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural
experience in a work of literature for children or youth)
in 2004, and Return to Sender which was published in
2009 and won the Belpre Medal in 2010.
It includes Singing from the Well (in Spanish also titled
“Celestino before Dawn”), Farewell to the Sea (whose
literal translation is “The Sea Once More”), Palace of
the White Skunks, Color of Summer, and The Assault.
When his autobiography, Before Night Falls was
published posthumously in 1992, it was on the New
York Times 1993 list of the ten best books of the year.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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A
Ayi Kwei Armah b. 1939
Ayi Kwei Armah is a Ghanaian novelist whose work
deals with corruption and materialism in contemporary
Africa. His first and best known novel, The Beautyful
Ones Are not Yet Born published in 1968, describes
the life of an unnamed rail worker who is pressured
by his family and fellow workers to accept bribes and
involve himself in corrupt activities in order to provide
his family with material goods. The book is filled with
images of birth, decay and death, most notably in the
form of a man child who goes through the entire life
cycle in seven years. This man child is a metaphor for
post-independence Ghana.
His second, more autobiographical, novel Fragments,
published in 1971, follows the same theme as his
first; as in it, the main character having returned from
the United States is expected to return to his family
bearing the monetary gifts which as in his first novel, is
achieved with graft and corruption, which impoverishes
the country’s infrastructure. Later works, such as Two
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Thousand Seasons, published in 1973 and The Healers
which was published in 1978, have a more obviously
African focus, and have been characterized by some
Western critics as inferior to his early novels. However,
they received a better reception from African critics.
Mariama Bâ 1929 – 1981
Mariama Bâ was a Senegalese author and feminist,
who wrote in French. Her frustration with the fate of
African women, as well as her ultimate acceptance
of it, is expressed in her first novel, So Long a Letter,
published in 1979. In it she depicts the sorrow and
resignation of a woman who must share the mourning
for her late husband with his second, younger wife.
This short book was awarded the first Noma Award for
Publishing in Africa in 1980. Bâ died a year later after
a protracted illness, before her second novel, Scarlet
Song, which describes the hardships a woman faces
when her husband abandons her for a younger woman
he knew at youth, was published that same year.
James Baldwin 1924 – 1987
Imamu Amiri Baraka b. 1934
James Baldwin was an American novelist and
playwright who wrote about racial and sexual issues
in the mid-20th century, especially pertaining to Black
life in America. While not a marching activist, Baldwin
emerged as one of the leading voices in the civil rights
movement for his compelling work on race, notably
Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time. Baldwin
was open about his homosexuality and atheist beliefs
and in his novel, Giovanni’s Room, told the story of
an American living in Paris breaking new ground
for its complex depiction of homosexuality. He also
explored interracial relationships in his novels, another
controversial topic for the times.
Born LeRoi Jones, Imamu Amiri Baraka is an American
Scholar, Critic, Academic Author, Author, Playwright
and Poet. He attended Rutgers and then Howard
Universities and became a sergeant in the United
States Air Force.
After his writings led to a dishonourable discharge,
he became involved in the Black Nationalist poetry
and literature scenes and took the name Amiri Baraka
after the assassination of Malcolm X. He has taught at
several American universities and served as professor
emeritus of Africana Studies at The State University of
New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook University).
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Gwendolyn Bennett 1902 - 1981
including novels and short story collections, and also
television scripts and a stage play.
W. E. B. DuBois 1868 – 1963
A vital figure in the Harlem Renaissance (a cultural
movement centred in Harlem, New York that spanned
the 1920s), Gwendolyn Bennett is known for the
sensuality and visual imagery in her writing, which
included short stories and poems. Most of her famous
work, including her most famous poem, To a Dark Girl,
dates back to the 1920s.
Her work has won more than fifteen awards and her
television scripts include episodes of the long running,
children’s drama Byker Grove, as well as television
adaptations of her novels Whizziwig, published in 1995
and Pig Heart Boy which was published in 1997.
William Edward Burghardt DuBois was an American
civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist,
educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. Du
Bois’s most lasting contribution is his writing. As poet,
playwright, novelist, essayist, sociologist, historian,
and journalist, he wrote 21 books, edited 15 more,
and published over 100 essays and articles including
the novels, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, published in
1911, Dark Princess: A Romance, published in 1928,
a book of essays and poetry, Darkwater: Voices from
within the Veil, published in 1920 and two histories of
Black people, The Negro, published in 1915 and The
Gift of Black Folk: Negroes in the Making of America
which was published in 1924.
Malorie Blackman b. 1962
Malorie Blackman, OBE, is a distinguished British
writer and holds the position of Children’s Laureate for
2013–15. She primarily writes literature and television
drama for children and young adults and has used
science fiction to explore social and ethical issues.
Her first book Not So Stupid, was published in
November 1990 and is a collection of horror and
science fiction stories for young adults and since
then she has written more than fifty children’s books,
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Her books have been translated into over fifteen
languages including Spanish, Welsh, German,
Japanese, Chinese and French. Her critically and
popularly acclaimed Noughts & Crosses series,
published 2001 – 2008, uses the setting of a fictional
dystopia to explore racism. Speaking about the
Noughts & Crosses series, Blackman is quoted as
saying “I wanted to show Black children just getting
on with their lives, having adventures, and solving their
dilemmas, like the characters in all the books I read as
a child.” Noughts & Crosses was No. 61 on the Big Read
list, a 2003 BBC survey to find “The Nation’s BestLoved Book”, with more votes than A Tale of
Two Cities, several Terry Pratchett novels, and Lord
of the Flies.
His most significant historical work, Black
Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, published in
1935, details the role of Black Americans in American
society, specifically during the Reconstruction period
and remains the best single source on its subject.
Black Folk, Then and Now, published in 1939 is an
elaboration of the history of Black people in Africa and
the New World. Color and Democracy: Colonies and
Peace, published in 1945 is a brief call for the granting
of independence to Africans, and The World and
Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played
in World History, first published in 1947 is a major work
anticipating many later scholarly conclusions regarding
the significance and complexity of African history and
culture.
A trilogy of novels, collectively entitled The Black
Flame, published in 1957, 1959 and 1961, and a
selection of his writings, An ABC of Color which was
published in 1963 are also noteworthy.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Edward Kamau Brathwaite b. 1930
Constance Briscoe b. 1957
William Wells Brown 1814 – 1884
Octavia E. Butler 1947 – 2006
Born in Barbados, Caribbean poet and scholar Edward
Kamau Brathwaite was educated at Harrison College
in Barbados and Pembroke College in Cambridge. He
earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of
Sussex.
Constance Briscoe LL.B, M.A, LL.D. is a writer, barrister
and one of England’s earliest Black female Recorders.
Her best known works are her books Ugly which was
published in 2006, spent twenty weeks on The Sunday
Times hardback bestseller list and sold nearly a
million copies and it’s sequel Beyond Ugly, which was
published in 2008. Her most recent book The Accused
was published in 2011.
William Wells Brown was an escaped slave and the
first Black American to publish a novel. He published
his popular autobiography Narrative of William W.
Brown, a Fugitive Slave in 1847. His only novel, Clotel,
tells the story of the daughters and granddaughters
of President Thomas Jefferson and his slave Currer.
Brown’s historical writings include The Black Man, The
Negro in the American Rebellion, and The Rising Son.
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science
fiction writer, one of the best known among the few
Black American women in the field. Her first novel,
Patternmaster, led the five volume Patternist series,
published between 1976 and 1984. She then went
on to write several other novels, including Kindred,
published in 1979 and Parable of the Sower, published
in 1993 and Parable of the Talents, published in 1998
of the Parable series. Parable of the Talents went on to
win a Nebula Award (given to recognize the best works
of science fiction or fantasy published in the U.S.) for
best novel in 1999.
Co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement,
Brathwaite is the author of numerous collections of
poetry, including Black + Blues, published in 1976,
Middle Passages, published in 1992, Ancestors,
published in 2001, the Griffin International Poetry
Prize (Canada’s most generous annual poetry award
which goes to one Canadian and one international
poet who writes in the English language) winner Slow
Horses, published in 2005, and Elegguas published in
2010. He is also the author of Our Ancestral Heritage:
A bibliography of the Roots of Culture in the English
Speaking Caribbean, published in 1976 and Barbados
Poetry: A Checklist: Slavery to the Present which was
published in 1979.
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Gwendolyn Brooks 1917 – 2000
Gwendolyn Brooks was a post war poet best known as
the first Black American to win a Pulitzer Prize, for her
book Annie Allen. She began writing and publishing as
a teenager, eventually achieving national fame for her
collection A Street in Bronzeville.
In 1995, Octavia became the first Science Fiction
writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation “Genius”
Grant (an award given each year to typically 20 to 40
American citizens or residents, of any age and working
in any field, who show exceptional merit and promise
for continued and enhanced creative work).
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Aimé Césaire 1913 – 2008
Colin Channer b. 1963
Poet, author and politician Aimé Césaire was born in
Martinique in the French Caribbean. He left for Paris
at the age of 18 with a scholarship for University
and during his time at the Lycee Louis-le Grand, he
helped found a student publication, Etudiant Noir.
In 1936, Césaire started working on his famed piece
Cahier, which was not published until 1939. During the
1940s, Césaire was busy writing and publishing many
collections of his work. He seemed to be influenced
by art because he wrote a tribute to a painter
named Wilfredo Lam and one of his collections has
illustrations by Pablo Picasso. In 1968 he published
the first version of Une Tempete, an adaptation of
Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. He continued writing
poetry and plays and all of his writings are in French
with a limited number having English translations.
Colin Channer is a Jamaican writer, often referred to as
“Bob Marley with a pen,” due to the spiritual, sensual
and social themes presented from a literary Jamaican
perspective. Indeed, his first two full-length novels,
Waiting in Vain published in 1998 and Satisfy My Soul,
published in 2002 bear the titles of well known Marley
songs. Among other works he has also written the short
story collection Passing Through, published in 2004
and the novellas I’m Still Waiting, published in 2005
and The Girl with the Golden Shoes, published in 2007.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Charles Chesnutt 1858 – 1932
Charles Chesnutt was a trailblazing short story author
and novelist who offered up a rich collection of short
stories and novels on Black American life. A biracial
man, his novel The House Behind the Cedars looked
at skin colour while The Colonel’s Dream focused on
a Southern town. Other works include The Conjure
Woman and a biography on Frederick Douglass (an
C
American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman,
who after escaping from slavery became a leader of
the Abolitionist movement).
Austin Clarke b.1934
Austin Clarke is a Barbadian novelist and short-story
writer who has lived for most of his life in Canada. His
interest in writing began early in life, and in the 1960s
his short stories began to be published in Canadian
and other periodicals. Clarke’s stories and novels
primarily centre around the plight of the immigrant
West Indian in Canada, although his first two novels,
The Survivors of the Crossing, published in 1964 and
Amongst Thistles and Thorns, published in 1965 take
place in Barbados. His 2002 novel, The Polished Hoe,
won the Commonwealth Prize.
Countee Cullen 1903 – 1946
Countee Cullen was an American poet associated with
the Harlem Renaissance movement. His best known
works are Copper Sun, The Black Christ and The Ballad
of the Brown Girl.
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Edwidge Danticat b. 1969
Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian American writer who
published her first novel at 25 and continues to expose
her country’s traumatic history also using non fiction
and film. She won the American Book Award in 1999
for The Farming of Bones and the National Book Critics
Circle Award (a set of annual American literary awards)
in 2007 for Brother, I’m Dying.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Junot Díaz b. 1968
Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 – 1906
Buchi Emecheta b. 1944
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer, creative
writing professor and fiction editor. He published his
first short story collection Drown, in 1996; his novel The
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which won the 2008
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007 and his second short
story collection This Is How You Lose Her in 2012.
Paul Laurence Dunbar was an American writer of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries who wrote verse
and short stories, many of which were written in Black
dialect despite the fact that he felt the marketability
of dialect poetry was demeaning. He was one of
the first Black writers to attempt to make a living
from his writing, and one of the first to gain national
prominence in the US.
Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta’s fiction has focused
on sexual politics and racial prejudice, and is based
on her own experiences as both a single parent and
a Black woman living in Britain. Her first novel, the
semi autobiographical In the Ditch, published in
1972 together with its sequel, Second Class Citizen
published in 1974, provides a fictionalised portrait of
a poor young Nigerian woman struggling to bring up
her children in London. In The Bride Price published in
1976, The Slave Girl published in 1977 and The Joys
of Motherhood, published in 1979, she began to write
about the role of women in Nigerian society.
Rita Dove b. 1952
American poet Rita Dove is the youngest person and
the first Black American to be appointed Consultant
in Poetry at the Library of Congress. She has won
numerous awards for her work, including a Pulitzer
Prize for Poetry.
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Ralph Ellison 1914 – 1994
Ralph Ellison studied music before moving to New
York City and working as a writer. His acclaimed
first novel Invisible Man was published in 1952
and was seen as a seminal work on marginalization
from a Black American protagonist’s perspective.
Ellison’s unfinished novel Juneteenth was published
posthumously in 1999.
Her other novels include Destination Biafra, published
in 1982, The Rape of Shavi, published in 1983 and
Kehinde, which was published in 1994. Her latest
adult work of fiction, The New Tribe, was published in
1999. Emecheta is also the author of several novels for
children, including Nowhere to Play and The Moonlight
Bride both published in 1980. She published a volume
of autobiography, Head Above Water, in 1986 and her
television play, A Kind of Marriage, was first screened
by the BBC in 1976.
Olaudah Equiano 1745 – 1797
Activist and Journalist Olaudah Equiano was born
in approximately 1745 in what is now Nigeria. His
autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first
published in 1789, recounts him being kidnapped from
Africa as a child and sold into slavery and is considered
the first influential slave narrative. After Equiano
bought his freedom he became part of the Abolition
movement. He died on March 3, 1797, in London and
his daughter Joanna Vassa is buried in Abney Park
Cemetery, Hackney.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Nuruddin Farah b. 1945
Nuruddin Farah is a prominent Somali novelist. He
was awarded the 1998 Neustadt International
Prize for Literature (regarded by some as the most
prestigious international literary prize after the Nobel
Prize in Literature). After releasing an early short story
in his native Somali language, Farah shifted to writing
in English.
His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, published in 1970,
told the story of a nomad girl who flees from an
arranged marriage to a much older man. The novel
earned him mild but international acclaim. On a tour of
Europe following the publication of A Naked Needle in
1976, Farah was warned that the Somali government
planned to arrest him over its contents, so rather than
return and face imprisonment, Farah began a selfimposed exile that would last for twenty two years.
Farah describes his purpose for writing as an attempt
“to keep my country alive by writing about it”.
His trilogies of novels Variations on the Theme of an
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
African Dictatorship, published 1980 –1983 and Blood
in the Sun, published 1986 –1999, form the core of
his work. Although Variations was well received in a
number of countries, Farah’s reputation was cemented
by his most famous novel, Maps, published in 1986 as
the first part of his Blood in the Sun trilogy.
He followed the novel with Gifts in 1993 and Secrets
in 1998, both of which earned awards. His most recent
trilogy comprises of Links, published in 2004, Knots,
published in 2007 and Crossbones published in 2011.
Jessie Fauset 1882 – 1961
A poet and novelist, Jessie Fauset’s published works
include Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree. Fauset
studied at the Sorbonne and later worked as literary
editor for The Crisis magazine, the official publication
of the National Association for the Advancement
of Coloured People. The Crisis published the work of
Harlem Renaissance greats like Langston Hughes and
Jean Toomer.
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Aminatta Forna b. 1964
Aminatta Forna is a Scottish born British writer and
the author of a memoir, The Devil that Danced on the
Water, published in 2003 and three novels, Ancestor
Stones, published in 2006, The Memory of Love,
published in 2010 and The Hired Man, published in
2013. The Devil that Danced on the Water received
wide critical acclaim across the UK and the US and was
broadcast on BBC Radio before going on to become
runner up for the UK’s Samuel Johnson Prize for
non-fiction.
Her first novel Ancestor Stones, was named by The
Washington Post as one of the most important books
of 2006 and 2007, she was named by Vanity Fair
magazine as one of Africa’s best new writers. The
Memory of Love, was winner of the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize Best Book Award in 2011 and was
described by the judges as “a bold, deeply moving
and accomplished novel” as well as being shortlisted
for the Orange Prize for Fiction International IMPAC
Dublin Literary Award 2012 (an international literary
award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the
city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC),
and the Warwick Prize for Writing (an international
cross disciplinary prize, that is given biennially for an
excellent and substantial piece of writing in the English
language, in any genre or form, on a theme that
changes with every award).
Ernest J. Gaines b. 1933
Novelist Ernest J. Gaines’s wrote The Autobiography
of Miss Jane Pittman, a fictional personal history
spanning the period from the Civil War to the Civil
Rights Movement. In addition to The Autobiography
of Miss Jane Pittman, his novels include Catherine
Carmier, Of Love and Dust, In My Father’s House, and
A Gathering of Old Men and A Lesson Before Dying.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Marcus Garvey 1887 – 1940
Mike Gayle b. 1970
Nikki Giovanni b. 1943
Helon Habila b. 1967
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr was a Jamaican political
leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and
orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black
nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which
end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement
Association and African Communities League (UNIAACL). In 1928 after going on a lecture tour of Britain,
France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada, on his return
to Jamaica, Garvey established a new daily newspaper,
The Blackman.
Mike Gayle is the bestselling British author of six
novels about the male psyche, including My Legendary
Girlfriend, published in 1998, Mr Commitment,
published in 1999, Turning Thirty, published in 2000,
Dinner for Two, published in 2002, His ‘n’ Hers,
published in 2004, Brand New Friend, published in
2005, Wish You Were Here, published in 2007 and The
Life and Soul of the Party, published in 2008 as well as
a non fiction book The To Do List which was published
in 2009. He was a features editor and later an agony
aunt for Just Seventeen and Bliss magazines before he
had his first novel published. His most recent novel,
The Stag and Hen Weekend was released in 2012.
The poems of Nikki Giovanni helped to define the
Black American voice of the 1960s, ‘70s and beyond.
She was also a major force in America’s Black Arts
movement, establishing Cincinnati’s first Black Arts
Festival in 1967. She published her first book of poems,
Black Feeling, Black Talk in 1968.
Nigerian Poet and prose fiction writer Helon Habila
studied Literature and lectured for three years before
going to Lagos to write for Hints Magazine. Extracts
from his collection of short stories, Prison Stories, were
published in Nigeria in 2000.
In July, 1932, Garvey began publishing an evening
newspaper, The New Jamaican but the venture was
unsuccessful, so he followed this with a monthly
magazine, Black Man. This project was also
unsuccessful and in March, 1935, he moved to England
where he published The Tragedy of White Injustice.
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Lorna Goodison b. 1947
Poet Lorna Goodison was born in Kingston, Jamaica.
Her first full collection of poetry, Tamarind Season, was
published in 1980, and since then she has continued to
create poems and books that critics hail and in all, has
published eight collections of poetry including I Am
Becoming My Mother in 1986, Heartease, in 1988, To
Us, All Flowers Are Roses in 1995 and two collections
of short prose stories, Baby Mother and the King of
Swords: Short Stories in 1990 and Fool-fool Rose is
Leaving Labour-in-Vain Savannah in 2005.
The full text was published as a novel in the UK under
the title Waiting for an Angel in 2002 and received
a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2003. His second
novel, Measuring Time, the tale of twin brothers living
in a Nigerian village, was published in 2007, and his
latest novel, Oil On Water was published in 2010 and
shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
and the 2012 Orion Book Award.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Alex Haley 1921 – 1992
Robert Hayden 1913 – 1980
American Journalist and Author Alex Haley was an
American writer whose works including Roots and
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, centred on the
struggles of Black Americans. Today, Haley is credited
with inspiring a nationwide interest in genealogy and
contributed to the easing of racial tensions in America.
Time magazine called The Autobiography of Malcolm
X one of the 10 most important non fiction books of
the 20th century.
Robert Hayden was an American poet who is best
known as the author of poems, including Those Winter
Sundays and The Middle Passage.
Lorraine Hansberry 1930 – 1965
Playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry wrote
A Raisin in the Sun a play about a struggling Black
family, which opened on Broadway to great success.
Hansberry was also the first Black playwright and the
youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle
award.
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Nalo Hopkinson b 1960
Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican Canadian, science
fiction and fantasy writer and editor and the author
of novels Brown Girl in the Ring which was published
in 1998, Midnight Robber, published in 2000, The
Salt Roads, published in 2003, The New Moon’s Arms,
published in 2007 and short fiction collection Skin Folk
which was published in 2001. Her novels and short
stories often draw on Caribbean history and language,
and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Her
current novel, Sister Mine, was published in 2013.
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Langston Hughes 1902 – 1967
Langston Hughes was an American poet, novelist, and
playwright whose Black American themes made him a
primary contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the
1920s. Hughes first poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers
was published in 1921 and his first book of poetry The
Weary Blues was published in 1926.
His first novel, Not Without Laughter was published
in 1929 and he went on to write countless works of
poetry, prose and plays.
Zora Neale Hurston 1891 – 1960
Zora Neale Hurston spent her early adulthood
collecting folklore from the Caribbean and the South
and Latin America, publishing her collection of findings
in Mules and Men in 1935. Hurston was a fixture of
the Harlem Renaissance, rubbing shoulders with many
of its famous writers and in 1937; she published her
masterwork of fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Cyril Lionel Robert James (C.L.R. James)
1901 – 1989
Cultural historian, cricket writer, and political activist
C.L.R. James was born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. In
1932 he published The Life of Captain Cipriani, which
was later revised as The Case for West-Indian SelfGovernment in 1933. His most notable work was the
1938 published The Black Jacobins, a Marxist study
of the Haitian slave revolution of the 1790s, which
won him widespread acclaim. In 1953 his analysis
of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick called Mariners,
Renegades, and Castaways was published.
In Beyond a Boundary published in 1963, James
discussed the importance of cricket to the British
character and to the development of the West
Indies. His other books include the novel Minty Alley,
published in 1936, World Revolution, published in
1937, Notes on Dialectics, published in 1971, Nkrumah
and the Ghana Revolution, published in 1977 and
Cricket a collection of articles spanning the period
1935 to 1985 which was published in 1986.
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Catherine Johnson b. 1962
Linton Kwesi Johnson b. 1952
Catherine Johnson is a British author and screenwriter.
She has written several Young Adult novels and co
wrote the screenplay for the 2004 drama film Bullet
Boy. Her first book, The Last Welsh Summer, was
published in 1993 and she has since written and
published fourteen novels including Landlocked,
published in 1999 and honoured as an International
Youth Library White Raven book, Stella, published in
2002, The Dying Game, published in 2007, A Nest of
Vipers, published in 2008 and Arctic Hero which was
also published in 2008. Catherine undertakes work in
schools, was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London
Institute, Writer in Residence at Holloway Prison
and Reader in Residence at the Royal Festival Hall’s
Imagine Children’s Literature Festival.
Linton Kwesi Johnson is a Jamaican born UK based
dub poet. In 2002 he became the second living poet,
and the only Black poet, to be published in the Penguin
Modern Classics series.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
His performance poetry involves the recitation of his
own verse in Jamaican Patois over dub reggae, usually
written in collaboration with renowned British reggae
producer/artist Dennis Bovell.
Most of Johnson’s poetry is political, dealing mainly
with the experiences of being an African Caribbean
in Britain, his most celebrated poems being written
during the government of Margaret Thatcher.
Johnson’s poems first appeared in the journal Race
Today, which published his first collection of poetry,
Voices of the Living and the Dead, in 1974. His second
collection, Dread Beat An’ Blood, was published in
1975 by Bogle-L’Ouverture and a collection of his
poems was published as Mi Revalueshanary Fren by
Penguin Modern Classics in 2002 making him one of
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only three poets to be published by Penguin Modern
Classics while still alive.
Dorothy Koomson b. 1971
Dorothy Koomson is a contemporary British novelist
who has also written for a number of women’s
magazines and newspapers. In 2003 her debut novel,
“The Cupid Effect”, was published, followed by her
second novel, “The Chocolate Run” in 2004. In 2006,
she published her third novel, “My Best Friend’s Girl”,
which was chosen for the Richard and Judy’s Summer
Reads shortlist book.
Her fourth and fifth novels, “Marshmallows For
Breakfast” and “Goodnight Beautiful” were published
in 2007 and 2008 respectively and her sixth novel,
“The Ice Cream Girls” was published in 2010. Her
seventh novel, “The Woman He Loved Before” was
released in 2011 and her eighth book “The Rose Petal
Beach” was published at the end of 2012.
George Lamming b. 1927
George Lamming is a novelist, essayist and poet, the
most famous writer to emerge from Barbados and
one of the Caribbean’s most important novelists.
Lamming is the author of six novels: In the Castle of
My Skin, published in 1953, The Emigrants, published
in 1954, Of Age and Innocence, published in 1958,
Season of Adventure, published in 1960, Water with
Berries, published in 1971 and Natives of My Person,
published in 1972. His 1960 collection of essays, The
Pleasure of Exile, is a pioneering work that attempts to
define the place of the West Indian in the post colonial
world, re-interpreting Shakespeare’s The Tempest and
the characters of Prospero and Caliban in terms of
personal identity and the history of the Caribbean. In
May 2011 the National Union of Writers and Artists of
Cuba (UNEAC) awarded Lamming the first Caribbean
Hibiscus Award in acknowledgement of his lifetime’s
work and in April 2012, he was chair of judges for the
OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (a literary
award for books by Caribbean writers).
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Andrea Levy b. 1956
Andrea Levy is a British author, to Jamaican parents
who sailed to England on the Empire Windrush
in 1948. In her first three novels she explored the
problems faced by Black British born children of
Jamaican emigrants from different perspectives.
In her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Every
Light in the House Burnin’, published in 1994, the
story is based around a Jamaican family living in
London in the 1960s. Her second novel Never Far from
Nowhere, published in 1996, is set during the 1970s
and tells the story of two very different sisters living
on a London council estate. In her third novel Fruit of
the Lemon, published in 1999, Faith Jackson, a young
Black woman, visits Jamaica after suffering a nervous
breakdown and discovers a previously unknown
personal history. Her fourth novel Small Island,
published in 2004 examines the experiences of those
of her father’s generation who returned to Britain after
being in the RAF during the Second World War and in
her latest novel, The Long Song which was published
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
in 2011; Levy goes further back to the origins of that
intimacy between Britain and the Caribbean focusing
on the last years of slavery and the period immediately
after emancipation.
Earl Lovelace b. 1935
Novelist, playwright and short story writer Earl
Lovelace was born in Toco, Trinidad and grew up in
Tobago. His first novel, While Gods Are Falling, was
published in 1965 and won the British Petroleum
Independence Literary Award. It was followed by The
Schoolmaster in 1968, about the impact of the arrival
of a new teacher in a remote community. His third
novel, The Dragon Can’t Dance published in 1979 and
regarded by many critics as his best work, describes the
rejuvenating effects of carnival on the inhabitants of
a slum on the outskirts of Port of Spain. In The Wine of
Astonishment published in 1982, he examines popular
religion through the story of a member of the Baptist
Church in a rural village and his most recent novel, Salt,
was published in 1996 and won the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) in 1997.
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Nelson Mandela b. 1918
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is a South African Anti
Apartheid revolutionary and politician who served as
President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was
the first Black South African to hold the office, and
the first elected in a fully representative, multiracial
election. He joined the African National Congress in
1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling
National Party’s Apartheid policies after 1948 before
being arrested in August 1962. In November 1962
he was sentenced to five years in prison and started
serving his sentence at Robben Island Prison in 1963
before being returned to Pretoria, where he was to
later stand in the Rivonia Trial. From 1964 to 1982, he
was again incarcerated at Robben Island Prison and
then later moved to Pollsmoor Prison, during which his
reputation as a potent symbol of resistance to the
Anti-Apartheid movement grew steadily.
Released from prison in 1990, Mandela won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1993 and was inaugurated as the first
democratically elected president of South Africa in
1994. He is the author of many books but his best
known are the international bestsellers Long Walk to
Freedom, published in 1994 and Conversations with
Myself published in 2010.
Dambudzo Marechera 1952 – 1987
Dambudzo Marechera was a Zimbabwean novelist and
poet. His first book, The House of Hunger, published in
1978, is the product of a period of despair following
his time at Oxford. Regarded as signalling a new trend
of incisive and visionary African writing, the book
was awarded the 1979 Guardian fiction prize. His
second book, Black Sunlight, published in1980, has
been compared with the writing of James Joyce and
Henry Miller but it did not achieve the critical success
of House of Hunger. A third book, Mindblast; or, The
Definitive Buddy, was published in 1984 and comprises
of three plays, a prose narrative, a collection of poems,
and a park-bench diary. A collection of Marechera’s
poetry was published posthumously under the title
Cemetery of Mind in 1992.
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Claude McKay 1890 – 1948
Terry McMillan b. 1951
Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer
and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem
Renaissance and wrote three novels: Home to Harlem,
which when published in 1928 was the most popular
novel written by an Black American at that time, Banjo,
published in 1929 and Banana Bottom which was
published in 1933. McKay also authored a collection
of short stories, Gingertown, published in 1932, and
two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home
published in 1937 and Harlem: Negro Metropolis,
published in 1940. His book of poetry, Harlem Shadows
which was published in 1922 was among the first
books published during the Harlem Renaissance and
his book of collected poems, Selected Poems, was
published posthumously in 1953.
American novelist Terry McMillan published her first
short story, The End, in 1976. In 1987, she published
her first novel, Mama, followed by Disappearing
Acts, in 1989. Her hit novel, Waiting to Exhale, was
published in 1992 and in 1996 she published the best
selling novel How Stella Got her Groove Back. The two
latter books were later made into films.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Pamela Mordecai b. 1942
Pamela Mordecai is a Jamaican teacher, scholar, poet
and writer of short fiction. Mordecai has written articles
on Caribbean literature, education and publishing,
and has collaborated on, or herself written, over thirty
books, including textbooks, children’s books, five books
of poetry for adults, including From Our Yard: Jamaican
Poetry since Independence which was published
in 1987, a collection of short fiction, and (with her
husband, Martin) a reference work on Jamaica, Culture
and Customs of Jamaica, published in 2001.
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Her poems and stories for children are widely collected
and have been used in textbooks in the UK, Canada,
the US, West Africa and the Caribbean and her
short stories have been published in journals and
anthologies in the Caribbean, the US and Canada.
Toni Morrison b. 1931
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize
winning American novelist. Her novels are known for
their epic themes, vivid dialogue and richly detailed
Black characters and among her best known novels are
The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved resulting
in her winning nearly every book prize possible.
Walter Mosley b. 1952
American novelist Walter Mosley is a writer of mystery
stories noted for their realistic portrayals of segregated
inner city life. His first novel was Devil in a Blue Dress,
published in 1990, with “Easy” Rawlins, an unwilling
amateur detective from the Watts section of Los
Angeles. In all his Easy Rawlins novels, Mosley uses
period detail and slang to create authentic settings
and characters. While these are a mainstay, Mosley
has also tried his hand at other genres, such as
playwriting, science fiction and non fiction.
V.S. Naipaul b. 1932
Sir V.S. Naipaul is a Trinidadian writer of Indian
descent best known for novels A House for Mr. Biswas
published in 1961, A Bend in the River published in
1979 and A Way in the World published in 1994. He
received the Nobel Prize in 2001 for his novel Half a
Life, a story about an Indian immigrant to England
and Africa and he has also written several works of
non fiction including An Area of Darkness, published
in 1965, India: A Wounded Civilization, published in
1977 and Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey,
published in 1981 as well as travel writing and several
essays. He was knighted in 1989.
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Courttia Newland b. 1973
Ben Okri b. 1959
Courttia Newland is a British writer of Jamaican and
Bajan heritage. In 1997, he published his first novel,
The Scholar and further critically acclaimed work
followed, including Society Within, published in 1999
and Snakeskin, published in 2002. He is the co-editor
of the anthology IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black
Writing in Britain, published in 2000 and has short
stories featured in many other anthologies including
England Calling: 24 Stories for the 21st Century,
published in 2001 and The Time Out Book of London
Short Stories: Vol 2 also published in 2000.
Ben Okri OBE and FRSL (Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. His first two
novels, Flowers and Shadows, published in 1980 and
The Landscapes Within, published in 1981, are both set
in Nigeria and feature as central characters two young
men struggling to make sense of the disintegration
and chaos happening in both their family and country.
The two collections of stories that followed, Incidents
at the Shrine, published in 1986 and Stars of the
New Curfew, published in 1988, are set in Lagos and
London.
His books include a novella, The Dying Wish, published
in 2006 and a collection of macabre short stories,
Music for the Off-Key also published in 2006. His latest
book, The Gospel According to Cane was published in
2013.
In 1991 Okri was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction
for his novel The Famished Road, also published
in 1991. Set in a Nigerian village, this is the first in
a trilogy of novels which tell the story of Azaro, a
spirit child. Azaro’s narrative is continued in Songs of
Enchantment, published in 1993 and Infinite Riches,
published in 1998. His latest novels are In Arcadia,
published in 2002 and Starbook, published in 2007
and a collection of poems, An African Elegy, was
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
published in 1992, and an epic poem, Mental Flight, in
1999. A collection of essays, A Way of Being Free, was
published in 1997.
His most recent books are A Time for New Dreams
published in 2011, a collection of linked essays, and a
new collection of poetry, Wild, published in 2012 and
he is also the author of a play entitled In Exilus. Okri
has made reference to having been stongly influenced
by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his
mother’s storytelling having been quoted as saying
“If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldn’t
correct me, she’d tell me a story.”
Caryl Philips b. 1958
Caryl Phillips is a Kittian-British novelist, playwright and
essayist. He is the author of six novels, several books of
non-fiction and has written for film, theatre, radio and
television. Much of his writing - both fiction and nonfiction - has focused on the legacy of the Transatlantic
Slave Trade and its consequences for the African
Diaspora. At the age of 22, Phillips visited St. Kitts for
the first time since his family had left the island in
1958 and the journey provided the inspiration for his
first novel, The Final Passage, which was published five
years later in 1985. After publishing his second book,
The State of Independence in 1986, Phillips went on
a one month journey around Europe, which resulted
in his collection of essays The European Tribe. During
the late 1980s and early 1990s, Phillips divided his
time between England and St. Kitts whilst working
on his novels Higher Ground published in 1989 and
Cambridge, published in 1991. In 1990, Phillips took
up a Visiting Writer position at Amherst College in
Massachusetts. He remained at Amherst College for
a further eight years, becoming the youngest English
tenured Professor in the US when he was promoted
to that position in 1995. During this time, he wrote
what is perhaps his most well-known novel, Crossing
the River, which was published in 1993, won the
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for
the Booker Prize. Phillips was made an elected fellow of
the Royal Society of Literature in 2000, and an elected
fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2011.
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Geoffrey Philp b. 1958
Geoffrey Philp is a Jamaican poet, novelist, and
playwright. He is the author of the novel, Benjamin,
My Son published in 2003, and six poetry collections:
Exodus and Other Poems, published in 1990, Hurricane
Center, published in 1998, Florida Bound, published in
1995 Xango Music, published in 2001, Twelve Poems
and A Story for Christmas, published in 2005 and
Dub Wise, published in 2010. He has also written two
books of short stories, Uncle Obadiah and the Alien
published in 1997 and Who’s Your Daddy? and Other
Stories published in 2009; a play, Ogun’s Last Stand
in 2005, and two children’s books, Grandpa Sydney’s
Anancy Stories published in 2007 and Marcus and the
Amazons published in 2011.
His work has been mainly influenced by Derek Walcott,
Kamau Brathwaite, V.S. Naipaul, Bob Marley, and
Joseph Campbell and contains some elements of
magical realism. Many of his short stories focus on the
dilemmas facing fatherless children in the Caribbean,
the disruptive effects of the Jamaican diaspora on
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family and community life, and the spiritual and
political dimensions of Reggae and the Rastafari
movement.
Andrew Salkey 1928 – 1995
Andrew Salkey was a novelist, poet, freelance writer
and journalist of Jamaican and Haitian origin whose
work reflected a commitment to Jamaican culture.
He attended the University of London and became
part of the London community of emerging West
Indian writers. He became a freelance writer and
journalist and contributed to the British Broadcasting
Company (now the British Broadcasting Corporation)
as a radio interviewer, critic, and author of radio
plays and features. Salkey’s first novel, A Quality of
Violence, published in 1959, is set in a remote area of
Jamaica about 1900, when a prolonged drought leads
Christians to turn toward the older, “darker” ways of
voodoo and obeah. Like many of his other books, it is
narrated in a distinctive Jamaican patois that is rich
with folk speech rhythms.
After a second novel, Escape to an Autumn Pavement
published in 1960, Salkey spent several years writing
stories for children. His popular short story collection
Anancy’s Score which was published in 1973, featured
the trickster Anancy, an engaging character in
traditional Caribbean culture to whom Salkey returned
in the story collection Anancy, Traveller which was
published in 1992. In addition to his later novels
and several volumes of poetry, Salkey also edited
anthologies of Jamaican and Caribbean short stories
and folktales.
Ousmane Sembène 1923 – 2007
Ousmane Sembène was a Senegalese film director,
producer and writer. The Los Angeles Times considered
him one of the greatest authors of Africa and he
has often been referred to as the “father of African
film”. It was after stowing away to France from his
native country of Senegal and working on the docks
at Marseille, that Sembène discovered his love for
literature after discovering the works of writers such as
Claude McKay.
He drew on many of his experiences working on the
docks for his French language first novel, Le Docker
Noir (The Black Docker), which was published in
1956. Though the book focuses particularly on the
mistreatment of African immigrants, Sembène also
details the oppression of Arab and Spanish workers,
making it clear that the issues are as much economic
as they are racial.
The book began Sembène’s literary reputation and
provided him with the financial support to continue
writing. Sembène’s second novel, O Pays, mon beau
peuple! (Oh country, my beautiful people!), published
in 1957, tells the story of an ambitious black farmer
returning to his native Casamance with a new
White wife and ideas for modernizing the area’s
agricultural practices. O Pays, mon beau peuple! was
an international success, giving Sembène invitations
from around the world, particularly from Communist
countries such as China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union,
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and while in Moscow, Sembène had the opportunity to
study filmmaking for a year at Gorki Studios.
His third and most famous novel is Les Bouts de Bois
de Dieu (God’s Bits of Wood), published in 1960 and
regarded by most critics as his masterpiece, rivaled
only by Xala. The novel fictionalises the real-life
story of a railroad strike on the Dakar-Niger line that
lasted from 1947 to 1948. Sembène followed Les
Bouts de Bois de Dieu with the short fiction collection
Voltaïque (tribal scars), which was published in 1962.
The collection contains short stories, tales, and fables,
including “La Noire de...” which he would later adapt
into his first film.
In 1964, he released l’Harmattan (The Harmattan),
an epic novel about a referendum for independence
in an African capital. With the 1965 publication of
Le mandat, précédé de Vehi-Ciosane (The Money
Order and White Genesis), Sembène’s his sights on
the corrupt African elites that followed the racial and
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economic oppression of the colonial government.
Sembène continued this theme with the 1973 novel
Xala, the story of a rich businessman struck by what
he believes to be a curse of impotence and discovering
after losing most of his money and reputation that
the source of the curse is the beggar who lives outside
his offices, whom he wronged in acquiring his fortune.
Le Dernier de l’empire (The Last of the Empire),
published in 1981, is Sembène’s last novel and depicts
corruption and an eventual military coup in a newly
independent African nation. His paired 1987 novellas
Niiwam et Taaw (Niiwam and Taaw) continue to
explore social and moral collapse in urban Senegal.
On the strength of Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu and Xala,
Sembène is considered one of the leading figures in
African postcolonial literature. However, the lack of
English translation of many of his novels has hindered
Sembène from achieving the same international
popularity enjoyed by Chinua Achebe and Wole
Soyinka.
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Olive Senior b. 1941
Poet, novelist and short story writer Olive Senior was
born and brought up in Trelawny, Jamaica. She started
her career as a journalist with the Daily Gleaner and
later entered the world of publishing.
Her prize winning collection of stories, Summer
Lightning published in 1986, won the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize followed by Arrival of the Snake-Woman,
published in 1989 and 2010 and Discerner of Hearts,
published in 1995 and 2002. Her novel, Dancing
Lessons was published in Canada in 2011 and an
illustrated children’s book, Birthday Suit in 2012.
Her poetry books are Shell, published in 2007, Over
the roofs of the world, published in 2005, Gardening
in the Tropics, published in 1994, 1995 and 2005 and
Talking of Trees, published in 1986. Olive Senior’s non
fiction works on Caribbean culture include the A-Z
of Jamaican Heritage, published in 1984, Working
Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-Speaking
Caribbean, published in 1991 and The Encyclopedia of
Jamaican Heritage, published in 2003.
Zadie Smith b. 1975
Zadie Smith is a British novelist, essayist and
short story writer. Her acclaimed first novel, White
Teeth, published in 2000, is a vibrant portrait of
contemporary multicultural London, told through the
story of three ethnically diverse families. The book won
a number of awards and prizes, including the Guardian
First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award,
and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Overall Winner,
Best First Book). It also won two EMMA (BT Ethnic and
Multicultural Media Awards) for Best Book/Novel and
Best Female Media Newcomer, and was short listed
for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the
Orange Prize for Fiction and the Author’s Club First
Novel Award. White Teeth has been translated into
over twenty languages and was adapted for Channel 4
television for broadcast in autumn 2002. Her tenure as
Writer in Residence at the Institute of Contemporary
Arts resulted in the publication of an anthology
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of erotic stories entitled Piece of Flesh which was
published in 2001.
Smith’s second novel, The Autograph Man, published
in 2002, won the 2003 Jewish Quarterly Literary
Prize for Fiction and in 2003 she was nominated by
Granta magazine as one of 20 ‘Best of Young British
Novelists’. Her third novel, On Beauty, was published
in 2005, and won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction.
She has also written a non-fiction book about writing
published in 2006 and entitled Fail Better and
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, published in
2009. Her latest novel, NW, was published in 2012.
Wole Soyinka b. 1934
Akinwande Oluwole “Wole” Șoyinka is a Nigerian
writer, notable especially as a playwright and poet.
He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature
becoming the first person in Africa and the diaspora
to be honoured in this way. As a dramatist, Soyinka
bases his writing on the mythology of his own tribe
the Yoruba, with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the
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centre and he has written two novels, The Interpreters,
which was published in 1965 and Season of Anomy
which was published in 1973. His autobiographical
works are The Man Died: Prison Notes, published in
1972 and the account of his childhood, Aké, which
was published in 1981. His poems are collected in
Idanre, and Other Poems, published in 1967, Poems
from Prison, published in 1969, A Shuttle in the Crypt,
published in 1972, Ogun Abibiman published in 1976
and Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems which was
published in 1988.
Wallace Henry Thurman 1902 – 1934
Wallace Henry Thurman was an American literary
figure associated with the Harlem Renaissance. After
work on literary journals and getting mixed reviews
on his own work, in 1932, Wallace Henry Thurman
published his best known novel; Infants of the Spring, a
satire of what he believed were the overrated creative
figures of the Harlem scene. While some reviewers
welcomed Thurman’s bold insight, others vilified him
as a racial traitor and Thurman never again wrote on
Black American subjects.
Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o b. 1938
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is a Kenyan writer, who began
writing in English but started writing solely in the
Kikuyu language for political reasons. His work includes
novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from
literary and social criticism to children’s literature. He
became East Africa’s leading novelist with books like
Weep Not, Child, published in 1964, The River Between,
published in 1965 and A Grain of Wheat, which was
published in 1967.
Jean Toomer 1894 – 1967
American Poet, novelist and short-story writer Jean
Toomer was a major figure during the Harlem
Renaissance. Toomer started off writing several short
stories and poems and in 1921, he started working on
his first and best known book, Cane.
Amos Tutuola 1920 – 1997
Amos Tutuola was a Nigerian writer famous for his
books based in part on Yoruba folktales. He is best
known for the novel The Palm-Wine Drinkard and
His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads’ Town,
published 1952, which was the first Nigerian book to
achieve international fame.
In The Palm-Wine Drunkard and his subsequent novels,
Tutuola incorporated Yoruba myths and legends into
loosely constructed prose epics that improvise on
traditional themes found in Yoruba folktales.
The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a classic quest tale in
which the hero, a lazy boy who likes to spend his days
drinking palm wine, gains wisdom, confronts death,
and overcomes many perils in the course of his journey.
The book has been translated into 11 languages. In
1954, Tutuola followed up his first book with My Life
in the Bush of Ghosts, which reiterates the quest motif
through the experiences of a boy who, in trying to
escape from slave traders, finds himself in the Bush of
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Ghosts. Another quest is found in Simbi and the Satyr
of the Dark Jungle, published in 1955, which is a more
compact tale focusing upon a beautiful and rich young
girl who leaves her home and experiences poverty and
starvation.
In this and the books that followed: The Brave African
Huntress in 1958, The Feather Woman of the Jungle in
1962, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty in 1967 and The
Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town in 1981, Tutuola’s
rich vision imposes unity upon a series of relatively
random events. His later works include Yoruba
Folktales published in 1986, Pauper, Brawler, and
Slanderer, published in 1987 and The Village Witch
Doctor and Other Stories which was published in 1990.
Tutuola’s vivid presentation of the world of Yoruba
mythology and religion and his grasp of literary form
made him a success among a wide British, African, and
American audience.
Binyavanga Wainaina b. 1971
Binyavanga Wainaina is a Kenyan novelist, short
story writer and journalist. Following his education,
Wainaina worked in Cape Town for some years as a
freelance food and travel writer before winning the
Caine Prize for African Writing (an annual literary
award for the best original short story by an African
writer published in the English language) for his short
story “Discovering Home” in July 2002. He is the
founding editor of Kwani?, the first literary magazine
in East Africa since Transition Magazine. Since its
founding, Kwani? has since become an important
source of new writing from Africa; several writers for
the magazine have been nominated for the Caine Prize
and have subsequently won it. Wainaina’s satirical
essay “How to Write About Africa” attracted wide
attention.
In 2003, he was given an award by the Kenya
Publisher’s Association, in recognition of his services to
Kenyan literature. He has written for The EastAfrican,
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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National Geographic, The Sunday Times (South Africa),
Granta, the New York Times, Chimurenga magazine
and The Guardian (UK) and his debut book, a memoir
entitled One Day I Will Write About This Place, was
published in 2011. He is currently a Bard Fellow and
the Director of the Chinua Achebe Center for African
Literature and Languages at Bard College.
Derek Walcott b. 1930
St Lucia born poet and playwright Derek Walcott
began writing poetry at an early age and in 1948 at
the age of 18, he made his debut with 25 Poems but
his breakthrough came with the collection of poems,
In a Green Night in 1962. Walcott is best known for
his poetry, but of Walcott’s approximate of 30 plays,
the best known include Dream on Monkey Mountain
produced in 1967 and Pantomime produced in 1978.
Many of his plays make use of themes from Black folk
culture in the Caribbean.
Alice Walker b. 1944
Alice Walker is an American novelist and poet most
famous for her 1982 novel, The Color Purple, for which
she won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her books
of poetry include Hard Times Require Furious Dancing,
published in 2010, A Poem Traveled Down My Arm:
Poems And Drawings, published in 2003 and Absolute
Trust in the Goodness of the Earth which was also
published in 2003.
As well as The Color Purple, her novels and short
story collections include Possessing the Secret of
Joy: A Novel, which was published in 2008, The Way
Forward is with a Broken Heart, published in 2000 and
You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down , which was
published in 1981.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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Dorothy West 1907 – 1998
Harriet E. Wilson 1825 – 1900
Dorothy West was an American writer remembered for
her sharp observations of varied issues within the Black
American community. She completed her first novel,
The Living Is Easy, in 1948 and published a second
novel, The Wedding, in 1995 to much acclaim.
Harriet E. Wilson was the first Black American female
novelist, and one of the first Black Americans to publish
a novel in the United States. In 1859 she wrote the
autobiographical novel Our Nig: Sketches from the
Life of a Free Black which addressed racism in the
pre Civil War North.
Phillis Wheatley 1753 – 1784
In the late 18th century, slave poet Phillis Wheatley
impressed everyone she met, proving to the world that
the colour of a person’s skin does not indicate intellect.
Born in Senegal in about 1753, Phillis was brought to
Boston, Massachusetts, on a slave ship in 1761, and
was purchased by John Wheatley as a personal servant
to his wife. The Wheatleys educated Phillis and she
soon mastered Latin and Greek, and began writing
poetry. She published her first poem at age 12, and
her first volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects,
Religious and Moral, in 1773.
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
Richard Wright 1908 – 1960
American writer and poet Richard Wright published
his first short story at the age of 16. Later, he received
critical acclaim for Uncle Tom’s Children, a collection
of four stories but is best known for the 1940 bestseller
Native Son and his 1945 autobiography Black Boy.
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Benjamin Zephaniah b. 1958
Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is a British writer
and dub poet. He was included in The Times list of
Britain’s top 50 post-war writers in 2008. He published
his first poetry collection, Pen Rhythm, in 1980. His
second collection of poetry, The Dread Affair: Collected
Poems was published in 1985 and contained a number
of poems attacking the British legal system. Rasta Time
in Palestine, published in 1990, is an account of a visit
to the Palestinian occupied territories and contained
poetry and travelogue.
His other poetry collections include two books written
for children: Talking Turkeys published in 1994 and
Funky Chickens, published in 1996. He has also written
novels for teenagers: Face, published in 1999, Refugee
Boy, published in 2001, Gangsta Rap, published in
2004 and Teacher’s Dead, published in 2007. His first
television play, Dread Poets Society, was first screened
by the BBC in 1991 and his play Hurricane Dub was one
of the winners of the BBC Young Playwrights Festival
Award in 1998.
His radio play Listen to Your Parents, first broadcast on
BBC Radio 4 in 2000, won the Commission for Racial
Equality Race in the Media Radio Drama Award and
has been adapted for the stage. Many of the poems in
Too Black, Too Strong, published in 2001, were inspired
by his attendance at both the inquiry into the ‘Bloody
Sunday’ shootings and the inquiry into the death of
Ricky Reel, an Asian student found dead in the Thames.
We Are Britain! published in 2002, is a collection
of poems celebrating cultural diversity in Britain
and his most recent books, both for children, are an
autobiography: Benjamin Zephaniah: My Story and
When I Grow Up, both published in 2011.
Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
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WZ
Did you know?
The library catalogue features
lots of Black writers and interest materials
For more information
020 8356 3000
[email protected]
www.hackney.gov.uk/cl-libraries
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers
LGBT A-Z of Gay LiteratureProduced
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