Reading Books in Black and White

by
Carleen Brice
From the November/December 2009 issue of
Poets & Writers Magazine

December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month. That's right, I established it last year. After all, it's hard for anyone—of any color—to make it as a novelist without the support of a wide audience, which, for black authors, means the support of white folks. That's why I, a black author, started the blog White Readers Meet Black Authors and launched this annual awareness campaign. Whether it's because of a lack of media exposure or the absence of word of mouth, I don't think white readers hear much about black novelists, except for Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Colson Whitehead, and a few others, so they don't know which of our books they may like. Below are a few suggestions. Others can be found at welcomewhitefolks.blogspot.com. 

 For those who like  Buy
 Toni Morrison's A Mercy  The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
 Jane Smiley's Ten Days in the Hills  Kiss the Sky by Farai Chideya
 Ann Patchett's Run  Before I Forget by Leonard Pitts Jr.
 Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore  Big Machine by Victor LaValle
 Greg Iles's The Devil's Punchbowl  Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
 Kathryn Stockett's The Help  The Air Between Us by Deborah Johnson

 

 

 

 


Carleen Brice
is the author of the novels Children of the Waters (One World Books, 2009) and Orange Mint and Honey (One World Books, 2008), for which she won the 2009 First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in Denver.