21 Books by Black Authors Being Released in 2021

0 Shares
0
0
0
0
0
0

Every year brings us a plethora of new and exciting books to add to our library. If you’re one of the many who have “read more books” written down as a 2021 New Year’s resolution, here are 21 books by Black authors being released this year!

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. (Adult Historical Fiction)

Out January 5

A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Open Water by [Caleb Azumah Nelson]

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (Fiction, Romance)

Out April 13

“Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists – he a photographer, she a dancer – trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Life After Death by Sister Souljah (Fiction)

Out March 2

Twenty years ago, Sister Souljah’s debut novel, The Coldest Winter Ever, became a bestselling cultural phenomenon. Fans fell in love with the unforgettable Winter Santiaga, daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family, who captivated her lovers, friends, and enemies with her sexy street smarts. For two decades, fans have begged for answers about what happened to Winter. Now all is revealed in Sister Souljah’s page-turning sequel, filled with her trademark passion, danger, temptation, and adventure. With her jail sentence coming to a close, Winter is ready to step back into the spotlight and reclaim her throne.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Black Girl Finance by [Selina Flavius]

Black Girl Finance by Selina Flavius

Out January 21

We don’t like thinking about money, do we? We think maths, we think spreadsheets, we think boring. But Selina Flavius, founder of Black Girl Finance, wants to show that there can be another, better way. A way to start making our hard-earned money work even harder for us.

Amazon.com

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

Out January 5

“Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America’s workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Out February 2

“A livewire debut from Dantiel W. Moniz, one of the most exciting discoveries in today’s literary landscape, Milk Blood Heat depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all. Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Out June 1

“Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

When You Look Like Us by Pamela N. Harris

Out January 5

When you look like us—brown skin, brown eyes, black braids or fades—everyone else thinks you’re trouble. No one even blinks twice over a missing black girl from public housing because she must’ve brought whatever happened to her upon herself. I, Jay Murphy, can admit that, for a minute, I thought my sister Nicole just got caught up with her boyfriend—a drug dealer—and his friends. But she’s been gone too long. Nic, where are you?

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong by Georgina Lawton

Out February 23

From The Guardian’s Georgina Lawton, a moving examination of how racial identity is constructed—through the author’s own journey grappling with secrets and stereotypes, having been raised by white parents with no explanation as to why she looked black.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House: A Novel

Out February 2

“In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister. It’s a cautionary tale, about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers and go into the Baxter’s Tunnels. When she’s grown, Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven into the Tunnels by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom – and their lives.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Who's Loving You: Love Stories by Women of Colour by [Sareeta Domingo]

Who’s Living You: Love Stories by Women of Colour by Sareeta Domingo

Out March 4

Forbidden love. Lost love. Unrequited love. Love so powerful that it can transcend countries, continents and even the boundaries of time. In this extraordinary collection, authored by some of the best storytellers working in the UK today, writers reflect on love and desire in all its many forms.

Amazon.com

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Novel by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

Out July 27

The award-winning poet and essayist makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic—an intimate yet sweeping novel with the freshness and forcefulness of Homegoing, The Turner House, and The Water Dancer —that chronicles the journey of one American family from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous time.

Amazon.com

The Rib King: A Novel by Ladee Hubbard

Out January 19

The acclaimed author of The Talented Ribkins deconstructs painful African American stereotypes and offers a fresh and searing critique on race, class, privilege, ambition, exploitation, and the seeds of rage in America in this intricately woven and masterfully executed historical novel, set in early the twentieth century that centers around the black servants of a down-on-its heels upper-class white family.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell

Out February 2

Transgressive, foulmouthed, and devastatingly funny, Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting―and often losing―the urge to self-sabotage. His characters solicit sex on their lunch breaks, expose themselves to racist neighbors, sleep with their coworker’s husbands, rub Preparation H on their hungover eyes, and, in an uproarious epilogue, take a punk band on a disastrous tour of Europe. They also travel to claim inheritances, push past personal trauma, and cultivate community while living on the margins of a white supremacist, heteronormative society.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Caul Baby: A Novel by Morgan Jerkins

Out April 6

New York Times bestselling author Morgan Jerkins makes her fiction debut with this electrifying novel, for fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jacqueline Woodson, that brings to life one powerful and enigmatic family in a tale rife with secrets, betrayal, intrigue, and magic.”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Harlem Shuffle: A Novel by Colson Whitehead

Out September 14

From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

This Close to Okay: A Novel by Leesa Cross-Smith

Out February 2

“A powerful, vibrant novel about the life-changing weekend shared between two strangers, from the award-winning writer Roxane Gay calls ‘a consummate storyteller.'”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

Out April 20

“A kaleidoscopic fictional oral history of the beloved rock ’n’ roll duo who shot to fame in 1970s New York, and the dark, fraught secret that lies at the peak of their stardom.”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams

Out May 11

“From celebrated national leader and bestselling author Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps is a gripping, complexly plotted thriller set within the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

We Are Not Like Them by Chrstine Pride and Jo Piazza

Out September 15

“Told from alternating perspectives, an evocative and riveting story about the lifelong bond between two women, one black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event—a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today and its devastating impact on ordinary lives.”

Amazon.com

When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown

Out April 13

In When Stars Rain Down, Angela Jackson-Brown introduces us to a small Southern town grappling with haunting questions still relevant today—and to a young woman whose search for meaning resonates across the ages.

Amazon.com

Bookshop.org

Originally posted 2021-01-05 10:00:07.

You May Also Like