What The Hell America!

Throughout history, readers have turned to Black literature for escape, understanding and inspiration, with the works of W.E.B. DuBois, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler and other writers serving as a reflection of the world and pioneered the idea of what a more inclusive future could look like. 

In the current political climate, returning to Black literature and its echoing themes of resistance, resilience and revolution is more important than ever. With the influence of the books that impacted them in their youth, today’s Black writers continue to lead the way toward a better future.

In honor of Black History Month, The 19th asked Black writers for their reading recommendations in a politically turbulent time. 

Trelani Michelle, author, anthropologist

‘Black literature is important because it’s where we see ourselves, past, present and future’

When she was 10 years old in her hometown of Savannah, Georgia, Trelani Michelle read the books on her mother’s bookshelf that held stories by Black authors such as Zora Neale Hurston, Terry McMillan, Zane and Eric Jerome Dickey, all of whom shaped the writer she eventually became. 

“Black literature is important because it’s where we see ourselves, past, present and future, in a way that Hollywood often erases [and] minimizes us,” she said.

Michelle is a writer and anthropological storyteller whose work is inspired by Hurston’s approach to ethnography, which she lovingly calls “Zora Neale Hurstoning.” Her 2019 book, “Krak Teet,”  titled after a Gullah Geechee phrase that means “to speak,” is a collection of oral histories imparted from elders of Savannah over the age of 80 who watched the city grow and develop over many decades.

During times like these, Michelle said it’s important to return to Black books about resistance and resilience because “ain’t nothing new under the sun.” Butler’s transcendental piece “Parable of the Sower” continues to resonate with readers because they can relate to it even 30 years after it was first published. 

“It’s almost chilling how closely the events in the book mirror what’s happening in our world today,” Michelle said. “We can read about how people in the book responded to their fear, where they stumbled, and where they succeeded, then use those lessons to guide our own choices and find some comfort in knowing we’re not alone in this.”

Michelle’s top pick:

• “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston: “The main character, Janie, is down South in the early 20th century with all the expectations and limitations of being Black and being a woman in her way yet she still demonstrates what self-emancipation and the beauty of choosing to live a pleasure-filled life looks like.”

She also recommends:

• “Temple of My Familiar” by Alice Walker: “Almost everybody knows about ‘The Color Purple,’ but not many know about ‘Temple of My Familiar,’ which is somewhat of a sequel. Fanny is one of the main characters and is Celie’s granddaughter. She’s very close to both Celie and Shug, and we know how self-emancipated those two were, so to see how their freedom manifested in Fanny is beautiful to witness.”

• “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur: “Shakur’s autobiography reflects on her upbringing in a segregated America, where her early experiences with racism and injustice shaped her fierce commitment to fighting systemic oppression.”

Eric Darnell Pritchard, author, professor

‘Black literature is sustenance’

Eric Darnell Pritchard’s life was saved by Black literature, as it provided them with a safety net growing up as an introverted queer Black child. 

“Black literature is important because Black literature is sustenance,” Pritchard said. “[It] gave me some of my first friends, the characters in books with whom I felt kinship with people I sought to have it with in real life, it gave me community.”

A writer and associate professor at the University of Arkansas, Pritchard has published essays including “Two Boys on Bicycles, Falling in Love” and a book, “Fashioning Lives: Black Queers and the Politics of Literacy.” While they prefer the impact of their writing to be determined by their community, Pritchard works to document and celebrate the complexities of culture, queer life and history.

Pritchard said that we must return to all forms of art to imagine a better world for ourselves. Black people, now and forever, can use literature to create and instill a new future that embraces everyone.

“The centuries of Black writing has shown us that not only is it revolutionary but it is also our responsibility to insist on life,” Pritchard said. “The journey of Black people and anyone who values all life is to keep creating the world we all deserve, and writing and reading literature is a practice space for us to do that as much as we wish.”

Pritchard’s top pick:

• “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs: “This book teaches us how to draw upon the ethics of Black feminisms, as represented also in the life of our marine mammal cousins, to come into right relationship with ourselves and with all the planet.”

They also suggest:

• “The Reformatory” by Tananarive Due: “It is an at times heartbreaking story of pain and violence, but braided into that story is a powerful testament of familial and communal love that is so powerful it reaches not only from his community miles away but also from beyond the grave.”

• “Flossie and the Fox” by Patricia McKissack: “I have not stopped sharing ‘Flossie’ with everyone I know . . .  and teach it in both graduate and undergraduate courses I teach on language, literacy and Black literature.”

Bee Quammie, multimedia storyteller

‘Reading Black literature provides a space in my imagination where I can just be’

Growing up in Canada, Bee Quammie developed a complicated relationship with Black History Month. In school, her teachers taught her a whitewashed history curriculum where Quammie said Black History Month was a “simple mention of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman.”

Black history was ubiquitous in Quammie’s childhood home, which was led by her Jamaican parents, but virtually absent everywhere else. As an adult, Quammie took a deep dive into Black history and discovered a “beautiful richness, depth and previously unseen connection to our present,” she said. 

Over the years, consuming and creating  Black literature has helped Quammie find language for hidden emotions and discover a space where she can be herself in her most authentic form.

“[Black literature] has made me feel like I am both unique and universal, and has given me examples of how to center myself in art and life. Reading Black literature provides a space in my imagination where I can just be, with imaginary friends who feel real, and is sometimes one of the only spaces in a day where I don’t feel the need to explain myself as a Black woman.”

Quammie will soon publish her debut book, “The Book of Possibilities: Words of Wisdom on the Road to Becoming,” and hopes that people in her community will learn something new and find something to relate to in her expressions of vulnerability. As a writer, she strives to be honest, brave and open throughout her work, and she hopes readers will be inspired to do the same.

When the world is overwhelming, Quammie said that returning to literature “reminds us that we faced hard roads before and that people cared about our existence when they crafted their work.”

“It tells us that we have never been alone, and there is both comfort and guidance in that,” she said.

Quammie’s top pick:

• “Black Women Writers At Work” edited by Claudia Tate: “This book has been a guiding light for me as a Black woman writer because the voices within its pages share a resilience that has helped me to keep telling truths in my writing even when it feels difficult.”

She also suggests:

• “Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada From Slavery to the Present” by Robyn Maynard: “I appreciate this book for centering Black Canadian life and putting the experiences we often talk about on the page as fact. Histories of enslavement, racism, police brutality, resistance and more — it is all covered and validated in this text.”

• “The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America” by Tamara Winfrey Harris: “This book felt like a warm hug when I first read it. It authentically speaks to the ways Black women live, love and lead — and is one of those books where you nod, talk back, and ‘mmmhmmm’ in agreement all the way through.”

Noni Carter, author, literary scholar

‘Black literature has been core to who I’ve been’

Since elementary school, Noni Carter has been invested in learning more about Black History in the United States and around the world — and her passion reflects her understanding and appreciation of Black literature. Carter views Black history as intrinsic to the core of Black people’s identities and believes now is a “fantastic time to bring attention to concepts [that show] who we need to be to get to a better world,” she said.

Throughout her life, Black literature has impacted her curiosity about the world and how the Black community fits within it. At 8 years old, Carter began to write her own stories; in middle school, she began exploring stories written by Black women. Afrofuturism was Carter’s first thread into the literary world and her first beloved books included Butler’s “Kindred” and Due’s “My Soul to Keep.” 

“Black literature has been core to who I’ve been since I was very young,” she said. “I remember how tangible [Due] made it feel [that] being an author and a woman of color in this world was possible.”

In high school, Carter published her first book, “Good Fortune,” and toured the country, leading workshops for elementary, middle and high school students. She saw firsthand students’ desire to unleash their creativity and since then, she has heard from people she worked with about how her teachings have impacted them. 

Now, Carter has strived to implement themes of creative writing into her academic work. Her 2022 dissertation, “Homo narrans: In pursuit of science’s fictions of the ‘human’ in 18th-century speculative science and 20th- and 21st-century speculative literature,” explores ideas of how people communicate with each other and understand who they are as individuals. In a way, her approach to academic writing is a form of resistance. 

“The only way forward is by imagining what doesn’t exist,” Carter said. “If we don’t use our imaginations, I feel like we get pulled back into the present-day squabbles with the government and institutions that are not trained to think beyond this moment. The only way we get beyond this moment is by imagining beyond it. That’s what literature does for us.”

Carter’s top pick:

• “Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle” by Katherine McKittrick: “It’s one of those ‘changed my life’ kind of books. Its premise is that Black women have been at the core of who we are as people since the beginning of time, but [McKittrick] maps the struggles of Black women throughout human existence.”

She also suggests:

• “Humus” by Fabienne Kanor: “A French-Caribbean novel that fascinated me because of the way in which [Kanor] used fiction to tell a story about a scrap [note] she found in an archive. [She creates] an entire fictional story around the lives of seven women who were thrown off a slave ship.”

• “M Archive: After the End of the World” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs: “[Gumbs] shares poetic reflections on [ideas] by Black theorists. … I think everybody in the world should be forced to read this book.”