Reviews and articles about many of the best books written by Black writers

How to Dodge a Cannonball

A Novel

by Dennard Dayle

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

A cutting, revealing caricature of the American Civil War, told through the eyes of a white teenager who joins an all-Black regiment of soldiers, for fans of Colson Whitehead and James McBride.

Meet Me at the Crossroads

A Novel

by Megan Giddings

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.

The Afterlife of Malcolm X

An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America

by Mark Whitaker

Hardcover: May 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X's influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.

Universality

A Novel

by Natasha Brown

Hardcover: Mar 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Remember—words are your weapons, they're your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power from a "powerful new voice in British Literature" (The Sunday Times).

This Is Your Mother

A Memoir

by Erika J. Simpson

Hardcover: May 2025 | Paperback: May 2026

From "a writer who's absolutely going places" (Roxane Gay), a remarkable, inventive debut memoir about a mother-daughter relationship across cycles of poverty, separation, and illness, exploring how we forge identity in the face of imminent loss.

When the Harvest Comes

A Novel

by Denne Michele Norris

Hardcover: Apr 2025 | Paperback: Apr 2026

In this heart-wrenching debut novel, a young Black gay man reckoning with the death of his father must confront his painful past—and his deepest desires around gender, love, and sex.

James

A Novel

by Percival Everett

Hardcover: Mar 2024 | Paperback: Apr 2026

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. From the "literary icon" (Oprah Daily) and Pulitzer Prize Finalist whose novel Erasure is the ...

The Witch

A Novel

by Marie NDiaye

Paperback: Apr 2026

In a small French town, a mediocre witch trapped in a cruel marriage cries watery tears of blood as she passes on her gifts to her twin daughters, who soon must make a choice: stay close to the nest and the mother who nourished them, or soar away ...

Theft

A Novel

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Hardcover: Mar 2025 | Paperback: Mar 2026

In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize, a master storyteller captures a time of dizzying global change.

Happy Land

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Hardcover: Apr 2025 | Paperback: Mar 2026

A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom—and her family's ties to it—in this enthralling novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand.

A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe

by Mahogany L. Browne

Hardcover: Mar 2025 | Paperback: Mar 2026

In this poignant mixed voice, mixed form collection of interconnected prose, poems and stories, teen characters, their families, and their communities grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst fear and loss, these New York City teens prevail with ...

Kin

A Novel

by Tayari Jones

Hardcover: Feb 2026

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge...