Amazing Books Written By Black Female Authors That Tackle Important Topics

For those needing a little contemporary life in the mix, The Other Black Girl expertly weaves narratives of  femininity, identity, suspense, and tension. This book hooks you from beginning to end, pulling you into its characters and workforce intrigue.

Editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the white world of publishing, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside her. They’ve only begun getting close when a series of fast-paced events elevates Hazel and puts Nella squarely behind her.

Then the mysterious notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

A  Young Adult thriller  with an emphasis in the ‘dark’ of dark academia, Ace of Spades is set in Niveus Private Academy, where money gleams around the corner and the students are perfect. Until anonymous texter Ace starts sending mass messages to the whole school, bringing two students’ dark secrets to light. These just happen to be the only two Black students in the entire school…

Musician Devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can’t escape the spotlight when his private photos get leaked. Head girl Chiamaka knows what she wants, but soon everyone finds out the price she paid to get to the top. Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And it runs much deeper than a private high school…

For my  dystopian fans out there, Nought & Crosses centers on two young people stuck in a prejudiced alternate society as Blackman flips everything we thought we knew on its head.

Sephy is a Cross, a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a Nought, the pale member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two are close childhood friends, but that’s as far as society lets them go. Noughts & Crosses simply don’t mix. 

Set in a world of increasing violence and terrorist activity, Sephy and Callum fall into a romance that inevitably leads them to danger. Can this Romeo and Juliet couple find a way to be together in a world that doesn’t let them? 

A literary classic, Morrison takes history for her own as she tackles the unending legacy and burden of slavery in the United States. 

Our protagonist Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She is still plagued by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful Southern farm where such awful things happened. Sethe’s new home in Ohio is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Beloved is a startling mix of suspense, ghost stories, and magical realism written in beautiful prose and poetry, experimenting with the novel’s formatting to highlight certain moments along the way. 

A contemporary novel told with a dual narrative of the past and present, Americanah tells the story of what happens when you leave home… and come back.

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they leave military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Ifemelu, confident and beautiful, heads for America, where, despite her academic success, she’s forced to contemplate what it means to be Black for the first time.

Quiet Obinze means to join her but, unable to get there post-9/11, he finds himself living undocumented in London. After fifteen years apart, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria and reignite their passion for each other and their homeland. 

As a bonus, I’ve included Recitatif by Toni Morrison, which isn’t exactly a book but  a short story , the only one written by Morrison, that’ll make your mind turn and cause some self-reflection.

The story centers on two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who’ve known each other their whole lives. Though close in childhood, they lose touch as they grow older, until they happen to bump into each other at a diner, then a grocery store, and, finally, a protest. Seemingly in disagreement and on opposite sides every time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond that connects them.