University Library News

Georgia State University

Black History Month honors and celebrates the contributions of African Americans in the rich fabric of American life and culture.  This week, the GSU Library honors African American writers.

While the roll of celebrated writers is long, the following authors (with selected titles) consistently top the most read/most influential/most awarded African American writers lists:

Maya Angelou, 1928-2014, autobiographer, poet, civil rights activist

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969 (autobiography)
• And Still I Rise, 1978 (poems)
• On the Pulse of Morning, 1993 (poem)

James Baldwin, 1924-1987, poet, novelist, playright, essayist, social critic

• Go Tell it on the Mountain, 1953 (novel)
• The Amen Corner, 1954 (play)
• The Fire Next Time, 1963 (essays)

Amiri Baraka, 1934-2014, poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, political activist, music critic

• Blues People:  Negro Music in White America, 1963 (music criticism)
• The Dead Lecturer, 1964 (poems)
• Home:  Social Essays, 1965

Octavia Butler, 1947-2006, science fiction writer

• Kindred, 1979 (novel)
• Parable of the Sower, 1993 (novel)
• Bloodchild and Other Stories, 1995 (short stories)

Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895, writer, orator, abolitionist, social reformer

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, 1845 (memoir)
• My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855 (autobiographical slave narrative)
• Frederick Douglass:  Selected Speeches and Writings, 1999

W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868-1963, sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, novelist

• The Souls of Black Folk, 1903 (essays)
• John Brown, 1909 (biography)
• The Quest of the Silver Fleece, 1911 (novel)

Ralph Ellison, 1914-1994, novelist, literary critic

• Invisible Man, 1952 (novel)
• Shadow and Act, 1964 (essays)
• Juneteenth, 1999 (novel)

Alex Haley, 1921-1992, novelist, journalist

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965 (autobiographical narrative, collaboration with Malcolm X)
• Roots, 1976 (novel)
• Queen: The Story of an American Family, 1993 (biographical novel)

Langston Hughes, 1902-1967, poet, novelist, playright

• The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, 1994
• Not Without Laughter, 1930 (novel)
• The Ways of White Folks , 1934 (short stories)

Zora Neale Hurston, 1891-1960, novelist, short story writer, folklorist, anthropologist

• Mules and Men, 1935 (folklore)
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937 (novel)
• Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942 (autobiography)

Toni Morrison, b. 1931, novelist, editor, professor

• The Bluest Eye, 1970 (novel)
• Song of Solomon, 1977 (novel)
• Beloved, 1987 (novel)

Alice Walker, b. 1944, novelist, poet, short story writer, activist

• The Color Purple, 1982 (novel)
• You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down, 1982 (short stories)
• Her Blue Body Everything We Know:  Earthling Poems (1991)

August Wilson, 1945-2005, playwright

• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, 1984
• Fences, 1987
• The Piano Lesson, 1990

Richard Wright, 1908-1960, novelist, short story writer, poet

• Native Son, 1940 (novel)
• Black Boy, 1945 (autobiography)
• Haiku:  This Other World, 1998 (poems)

Check out one of the books above, or search the library catalog for other authors and titles. You may also locate works by genre by using the following searches:

• african americans poetry
• african americans fiction
• african americans drama
• african american authors