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Mar 1, 2022 · From the Highlander clan named Douglas, Johnson suggested a new name. Frederick liked the name’s sound and strength as a word, and he quickly accepted, adding an s for distinction. Thus began the long process of the most famous self-creation of an African American identity in American history.
- Soraya Nadia Mcdonald
Jan 30, 2020 · 1859 Martin R. Delany: Blake, or the Huts of America — This is often cited as the first African American science fiction novel, though the author lived in England at the time it was published. It’s about a slave revolt, with hints at the Utopia that may follow.
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Which books use fantasy to explore Black Imagination?
- Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. Legendborn is one of the most stunning books of recent years. Bree Matthews enters a secret society she discovers is connected to her mother’s mysterious death.
- I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea. Jamison Shea’s Young Adult novel is a fantastical read focused on Black girl excellence in a racist institution—it’s also one of the best books of 2023.
- Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood. If you’re looking to read more gothics by Black authors, Lauren Blackwood’s Young Adult novel is a perfect book to add to your list.
- The Deep by Rivers Solomon. The Deep, written by the author of An Unkindness of Ghosts, is ostensibly about the African slave women tossed overboard during the Middle Passage but in this short read, they are immortalized as mermaids in a mesmerizing underwater society.
- The Forever Tree
- Pumzi
- To Catch A Dream
- An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
- Raising Dion
- Redemption in Indigo
- Dark Matter
- Everfair
- Brown Girl in The Ring
- Mulogo and His Quintuple of Trouble
The Forever Tree is a short film described by its creators as “an Indiana Jones like female driven adventure story, steeped in black history, about family, love and the pursuit of legends.” The 18-minute-long film follows Tawny Bennett, an antiquarian’s apprentice in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance. The black historical fantasy, which can be vi...
Pumzi, a Kenyan science fiction short film written and directed by Wanuri Kahiu, “imagines a dystopian future 35 years after water wars have torn the world apart.” It was originally screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival as part of a New African Cinema program. Sharing a producer with the film that District 9 was based on, Pumzicenters a young...
Written and directed by Jim ChuChu, To Catch a Dreamcombines fashion, storytelling and stunning landscapes of Kenya. This standout short film features a grieving widow, Ajuma, whose recurring nightmares of her dead husband drive her to explore a mystical remedy, opening her to a new world with curious strangers, magic and self-discovery.
Terence Nance’s An Oversimplification of Her Beautyblends animation with live action to examine the singular moment of time when a beautiful woman stood Nance up. The film, which was executive-produced by Jay-Z, dream hampton and Wyatt Cenac, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival as part of its New Frontier section.
Raising Dion focuses on single mother Nicole Reese, who is raising her 7-year-old son, Dion, after the death of her husband. However, things get complicated as Dion begins to develop powers like invisibility and telekinesis. Nicole must steer Dion as his powers evolve while simultaneously shielding him from detection. The first and last issue of th...
Barbadian author Karen Lord tells the hilarious tale of a woman who leaves her gluttonous husband and shortly after is presented with a Chaos Stick that allows her to manipulate forces in the world. Drawing on a Senegalese folktale, Redemption in Indigois a charming novel that is fresh and original.
Including writing from trailblazers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Octavia Butler and Charles Saunders, the comprehensive series Dark Matteris an anthology of fantasy, horror and science fiction penned by black authors.
What if the native populations of Congo had learned about steam technology and developed defense mechanisms against Belgian colonizers? Everfairexplores an alternate history in which a mass genocide is reimagined as a multitude of powerful and inspiring possibilities.
Jamaican-Canadian author Nalo Hopkinson illustrates a futuristic, dystopian Toronto that is in ruins because of crime and poverty. Though the protagonist, Ti-Jeanne, in Brown Girl in the Ringoriginally rejected the inheritance of her grandmother’s voodoo-priestess gifts, she must now employ this magic to take down the city’s drug lord.
In Martin Reese’s Mulogo and His Quintuple of Trouble,Mulogo, an inhabitant of the ancient African kingdom of Kush, discovers that he has the magical talent of being able to tap into the world’s ley-lines (grids of magical energy). Since magic has been outlawed, Mulogo hides his abilities and travels across the sea to be trained as a Master Wizard,...
- Ashley Nkadi
- The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. Essun comes home one day to find her husband has killed their son and kidnapped their daughter. She must journey through a broken and war-torn world to find and save her daughter, all during the collapse of the all-powerful empire that has ruled over the world for a thousand years.
- Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi. Set in ’92 Los Angeles, Ella has what she calls a "Thing" — an ability to see things that haven't yet happened. Her older brother Kev wants to protect Ella from herself — but after he ends up incarcerated, she struggles with her ability to confront the past and the future, knowing that a revolution might be the only way toward progress.
- Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, edited by Sheree Thomas. This anthology gathers fiction and essays from classic writers of Black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction like Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, Nalo Hopkinson, Walter Mosley, and more.
- Dawn by Octavia E. Butler. The first novel in the Xenogenesis series, Dawn, introduces us to Lilith, a woman whose son and husband died in the fires that destroyed Earth.
To most readers, it’s associated with the boldly experimental output of the Harlem Renaissance — the jazz-inflected, Manhattan-centered artistic movement in the early 20th century that saw Black authors like Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes win mainstream acclaim.
The first major twenty-rst-century history of four hundred years fi of black writing, The Cambridge History of African American Literature presents a comprehensive overview of the literary tradi-tions, oral and print, of African-descended peoples in the United States.
