Washington Black is a book of many things, except for the expected. Its outward appearance is that of a great adventure and a few quests, following the footsteps of a tenderly young escaped slave. But Esi Edugyan weaves a tale that goes much deeper to depict the basic underlying egotism and human desires that drive…
Cry, The Beloved Country is a literary criticism of South African apartheid using a handful of South African characters, both black and white, to vividly display the injustice to those who normally wouldn’t see it because of the figurative partition walls. There isn’t much left to be said about a book published in 1948, translated…
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor for The Atlantic, is an essay written to his son on growing up black, specifically on the subjugation and the preservation of ‘black bodies’. It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2015), an ALA Alex Award (2016), the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction (2015), a Pulitzer…