These are just some of
the books of black interest held by Shetland Library. We hope you find something
to enjoy among the books on the list. We welcome suggestions to add to this
selection.
|
Author |
Book |
|
|
Sperm bandits One
man's fight for the rights of his sperm! |
|
|
Complete
baby father
This
book gives an insight into fatherhood through the eyes of four very different
black men, using wit, humour and sensitivity. |
|
Bandele, Biyi |
Burma boy
Coming-of-age
story of the young Nigerian soldier |
|
Chikwava,
Brian |
Harare North
Follows the adventures of a
Zimbabwean refugee arriving in London |
|
Evans, Diana |
26a
Story
about a mixed White/Nigerian family growing up in Britain and briefly in
Nigeria |
|
|
Blonde roots
What if Africans had
enslaved Europeans and not the other way round? Hugely imaginative satire. Try also: The Emperor’s babe |
|
Mr Commitment Mike
Gayle is an agony uncle turned lad-lit author.
Try
also: The life and soul of the
party; My legendary girlfriend |
|
Wish I was here
Short
stories from this Glaswegian poet and author, who draws with humour and
pathos on her experience of being black, gay and adopted.
Try
also: Why don’t you stop
talking |
|
The cupid effect
A
funny look at love, life and matchmaking
Try also: My best friends girl |
|
|
Excellent Orange Prize winning story of Jamaican
immigrants in Britain after the war. Try also: Every light in the house burnin’; Fruit of the lemon |
|
|
Mitchell,
Dreda Say |
Killer Tune Well-reviewed book by a new black crime author |
|
The Scholar: A west side story 'A
glimpse into an urban nightmare where violence is casual, drugs are the
norm...a freshness in the details and in the dialogue - frighteningly
believable.' Try also: Dying wish; Snakeskin |
|
|
The name you once gave me A ‘quick read’ book – one man’s
search to find his Nigerian father. |
|
|
The lonely Londoners Classic
award-winning novel of immigrant life in London in the 1950s |
|
|
White teeth A rich novel of different
cultures across three generations. Try also: The autograph man; On beauty |
|
|
Venus as a boy Growing up black in
Orkney; graduating to a milieu of sexual exploitation in London. |
|
|
East of Acre Lane A
rhythmic, fast-talking tour of the tower blocks of South London. |
|
|
|
Without
prejudice
Legal thriller. |
|
Teacher’s dead A
teacher is dead, murdered by two of his students in front of the school. He
was a good man. People liked him. So how could this happen? It just doesn't
make sense to Jackson, and he is determined to investigate the case until he
understands. Novel aimed at young adults. Try also: Face; Refugee
boy |
|
Author |
Book |
|
Baldwin, James |
Another country The
story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search
for an understanding of his life and death. Try also: Giovanni's
room |
|
|
Soldiers of light Novel set against
atrocities in Sierra Leone. |
|
Clarke, Maeve |
What goes round A
humorous, character-packed account of a man's return to Jamaica with his
teenage daughter. |
D’Aguiar, Fred
|
Bloodlines A
novel-in-verse that tells the story of a young female slave who falls in love
with the son of the plantation owner. Try also: Feeding the
ghosts |
Danticat,
Edwidge
|
The dew breaker In a
series of episodes which resemble short stories, Danticat illuminates the
lives of Haitian immigrants as they remember a traumatic period "back
home." Try also:
After the dance |
|
Fuller, Vernella |
Unlike normal women
Set in rural Jamaica during the late 1960s, where Aunt Vie, the community matriarch, Miss Dee, the town dressmaker, and Azora, the "obeah," become unlikely allies. |
|
Gaines, Ernest B. |
A lesson before dying
In a small Cajun community in 1940s Louisiana, a young black man is about to go the electric chair for a murder he didn’t commit. |
|
Kincaid, Jamaica |
Mr.Potter
The
island of Antigua come vibrantly to life under the gaze of Mr Potter, an
illiterate taxi chauffeur who makes his living driving a navy blue Hillman
along the wide open roads which pass the only towns he has ever seen and the
graveyard where he will be buried. The sun shines squarely overhead, the
ocean lies on every side and suppressed passion fills the air. |
|
McMillan, Terry |
The interruption of
everything Sassy,
witty read from a popular black American author Try
also: A day late and a dollar short |
|
Morrison, Toni |
Beloved Pulitzer
Prize-winning story of slavery in the USA. Try
also: Song of Solomon |
|
Mosley, Walter |
Bad Boy Brawly Brown Popular black author
writing thrillers set in LA, starring unofficial detective Easy Rawlins |
|
Phillips, Caryl |
Dancing in the dark
The story of Bert Williams, the highest-paid entertainer in America in his heyday. Off-stage, Williams was a tall, light-skinned man with marked poise and dignity; on-stage he blacked up and played a stereotype. But the mask was beginning to overwhelm Williams and he sank into bouts of melancholia and heavy drinking, unable to escape the blackface his public demanded. Try also: A
distant shore; Crossing the river |
|
Rhys, Jean |
Wide Sargasso Sea A classic
- inspired by Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of
Jamaica in the 1830s |
|
Tademy, Lalita |
Cane river Family
saga of four generation of women born into slavery in Louisiana. Try also: Red river |
|
Walker Alice |
The color purple The story
of Celie: raped by the man she calls father, her two children taken from her
and forced into an ugly marriage, she has no one to talk to but God, until
she meets a woman who offers love and support. |
|
Wright, Richard |
Native son A young
black man in 1930s Chicago murders a white woman in a moment of panic. |
African
fiction
|
Author |
Book |
|
Achebe, Chinua |
Anthills of the
Savannah One
of the most widely read novels from Nigeria's most famous novelist, Things
Fall Apart is a gripping study of the problem of European colonialism in
Africa. Try also: A man of the
people; Things fall apart |
|
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi |
Half of a yellow sun Hugely successful novel
set among the horrors of the Biafran war. Try also: Purple
hibiscus |
|
Afolabi, Segun |
A life elsewhere An
impressive debut collection of stories of Diaspora; of people making their
lives in new lands, of the universal need to establish family and identity in
a world where the boundaries of geography, culture and language are
increasingly fluid. |
|
Atta, Sefi |
Everything good will come An
original, witty coming-of-age tale: Tom Sawyer meets Jane Eyre, with Nigerian
girls. |
|
Coetzee J.M |
Disgrace J
M Coetzee has become identified as one of the most finely tuned among
contemporary Southern African writers. Try also: Youth; Summertime; Dusklands |
|
Courtenay, Bryce |
Tandia
Tandia
is just a teenager when she is brutally attacked by the South African police.
She seeks refuge in a brothel deep in the veld, where her growing
relationship with a white man has the most explosive consequences. |
|
Couto, Mia |
Last flight of the flamingo Writer born in Mozambique – a novel about the civil war there. |
Diome, Fatou
|
The belly of the Atlantic Salie
lives in Paris. Back home on the Senegalese island of Niodior, her
football-crazy brother, counts on her to get him to France, the promised land
where foreign footballers become world famous. |
|
Emecheta, Buchi |
The bride price Takes you
into the way of life of the Ibo people of Nigeria and their approach to
marriage. Aku-nna
becomes a victim of the system of traditional beliefs. |
|
Habila, Helon |
Measuring time The story of two brothers in the small Nigerian village of Keti, one who becomes a soldier, one a writer. Try also: Waiting for an angel |
|
Kourouma, Ahmadou ordered |
Allah is not obliged
Birahima is ten years old. He lives in the Ivory Coast. He is a soldier. |
|
Mills, Marilyn Heward |
Cloth girl Engrossing
novel, exploring the strains of colonial life in Ghana through the
contrasting lives of black and white women. Try also: The
Association of Foreign Spouses |
|
Ngugi, Wa Thiong’o |
Petals of blood Published
to great controversy in 1977, this Kenyan novel is as much a whodunnit as a
political novel and satire. Ngugi unfolds a human landscape that is both
beautiful and horrifying, as tribalism and village life are manipulated in
the name of progress by the cynical bureaucrats who came to power as heroes
of liberation. Try also:
A grain of wheat; Weep not, child |
|
Okri Ben |
The famished road Acclaimed Nigerian author,
now living in London. The famished road won the Booker Prize in 1991. Try also: In Arcadia;
Infinite riches; Songs of enchantment |
|
Oyeyemi, Helen |
The Icarus girl Eight-year-old
Jessamy Harrison is the only child of a Nigerian mother and English father.
Intelligent, imaginative and prone to sudden and inexplicable tantrums and
unusual obsessions, she finds it hard to make friends. Then, on her first
visit to her mother’s family home in Nigeria, Jess meets TillyTilly, a
strange child with extraordinary abilities who leads her into forbidden
places and uncomfortable situations. Some time after returning to the UK,
TillyTilly turns up at the Harrison's London home and, at once, life for
everyone is turned upside down. Try
also: White is for witching; The opposite house |
|
Schreiner, Olive |
The story of an African farm Published in 1883, Schreiner's story of an articulate young feminist marks
the entry of the controversial New Woman into nineteenth-century fiction.
Raised as an orphan amid a makeshift family, she witnesses an intolerable
world of colonial exploitation. She leaves the isolated farm for boarding
school in her early teens, only to return four years later from an unhappy
relationship. |
|
Author |
Book |
|
Angelou, Maya |
I know why the caged
bird sings A famous and inspirational
autobiography. Try
also: All Gods children need travelling shoes; Even the stars look lonesome;
The heart of a woman |
|
Ecott, Tim |
Stealing water: the secret life of an African city Hilarious
and heartbreaking portrait of poor-white family life in the twilight of
apartheid. |
|
Forna, Aminatta |
The devil that danced on the water Memoir of a childhood in
Scotland and Sierra Leone and of a father’s courage. |
|
Gallman, Kuki |
I dreamed of Africa Haunting
memoir of bringing up a family in Kenya in the 1970s first with her husband
Paulo, and then alone, is part elegaic celebration, part tragedy, and part
love letter to the magical spirit of Africa. |
|
Grant, Colin |
Negro with a hat: the
rise and fall of Marcus Garvey and his dream of Mother Africa |
|
Greene, Melissa Fay |
There is no me without
you: one woman's odyssey to rescue Africa's children |
|
King, Martin Luther |
Autobiography |
|
Mandela, Nelson |
Long walk to freedom |
|
McBride, James |
The color of water: A black man's tribute to his white mother |
|
Pool, Hannah |
My Father's daughter In 1974
Hannah Pool was adopted from an orphanage in Eritrea and brought to England
by her white adoptive father. She grew up unable to imagine what it must be
like to look into the eyes of a blood relative until one day a letter arrived
from a brother she never knew she had. Ten years later she finally decided to
track down her surviving Eritrean family and embarked upon a journey that
would take her far from the comfort zone of her metropolitan lifestye to confront
the poverty and oppression of a life that could so easily have been her own. |
|
Soyinka, Wole |
You must set forth at dawn Autobiography of the first
African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. |
|
Wright, Richard |
Black boy At four years of age, Richard Wright set fire to
his home; at five his father deserted the family; by six Richard was -
temporarily - an alcoholic. Moved from home to home, from brick tenement to
orphanage, Gradually he learned to survive in a world of white hostility,
secretly satisfying his craving for books and knowledge until the time came
when he could follow his dream of justice and opportunity in the north. |
|
Author |
Book |
|
Angelou, Maya |
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now |
|
Baldwin, James |
Jimmy's blues: selected poems |
|
Bradley, Lloyd |
Bass Culture when Reggae was King The
first major account of the history of reggae |
|
Broughton, Simon |
World music: 100 essential CDs : the rough guide |
Hughes,
Langston
|
Selected Poems
of Langston Hughes |
|
Linton Kwesi Johnson |
Mi Revalueshanary Fren |
|
McCarthy, Karen |
Bittersweet |
|
Price, Richard |
Lucky Day |
|
Walcott, Derek |
Tiepolo's hound |
|
Zephaniah, Benjamin |
Too black too strong |
Travel and exploration
|
Author |
Book |
|
Allen, Benedict |
The skeleton coast: a
journey through the Namib Desert |
|
Bell, Gavin |
Somewhere over the
rainbow: travels in South Africa |
|
Boorman, Charlie |
Race to Dakar Charley
recounts his extraordinary adventures through Portugal, Morocco, Western
Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea and Senegal – taking part in the Dakar rally. |
|
Fuller, Alexandra |
Scribbling the cat:
travels with an African soldier |
|
Kingsley, Mary |
The Congo and the Cameroons Contemptuous
of Europe's 'civilising mission' in Africa, Mary Kingsley's (1862-1900)
extraordinary journeys through tropical west Africa are a remarkable record. |
|
Lanting, Franz |
Okavango: Africa's last Eden The
very best of nature photography |
|
Livingstone, David |
Narrative of an
expedition to the Zambezi and its tributaries |
|
Malathronas, John |
Rainbow diary: a
journey in the new South Africa |
|
McGregor, Ewan, and
Boorman, Charlie |
Long way down |
|
Moore, Peter |
Swahili for the
broken-hearted: Cape Town to Cairo by any means possible |
|
Murphy, Dervla |
In Ethiopia with a mule This extraordinary and
intrepid veteran travel writer gets to the heart of a country, and completely
off the tourist trail. Try also: South from
the Limpopo: travels through South Africa and The Ukimwi road : from
Kenya to Zimbabwe |
|
O'Hanlon, Redmond |
No mercy: a journey to the heart of the Congo |
|
Park, Mungo |
Travels in the interior of Africa In 1795
Mungo Park travelled through Africa on the sufferance of African rulers and
soon came to depend for his survival on the charity of African villagers.
Before he reached the Niger, he endured months of captivity in the camp of a
Moorish chief. Yet throughout his travels, Park maintained a remarkable
empathy for African societies and beliefs. He recorded what he saw as
accurately as he could, and without presuming European superiority. |
|
Pryce, Lois |
Red tape and white knuckles One woman’s motorcycle
adventure through Africa. |
|
Randall, Will |
Botswana time |
|
Ross, Karen |
Okavango: jewel of the Kalahari Revisits
this extraordinary wetland created by the Okavango River as it spreads and
spills over the Kalahari sands of northern Botswana |
|
Salak, Kira |
The cruellest journey:
600 miles by canoe to the legendary city of Timbuktu |
|
Stevens, Stuart |
Malaria dreams: an African adventure |
|
Theroux, Paul |
Dark star safari:
overland from Cairo to Cape Town |
|
Wilson, Colum |
In quest of Livingstone:
a journey to the Four Fountains |
|
Winternitz, Helen |
East along the equator: a Congo journey |
History
and general non-fiction
|
Author |
Book |
|
Carlin, John |
Playing the enemy: Nelson Mandela
and the game that made a nation How
the sport of rugby, once the preserve of South Africa's Afrikaans-speaking minority, came
to unify the new rainbow nation |
|
Cartwright, Justin |
Not yet home A
personal account of South Africa from the run up to the elections in 1994 and
through the subsequent two years. |
|
|
Black gold of the sun
”Where are you from? No, where are you really from?” These questions, which he has been asked since boyhood, drive Ekow Eshun to travel through Ghana in search of his roots, and lead him on an exploration of history and belonging, from slavery in Africa and the West to the present day and what it means to be black. |
King Leopold’s ghost
“One of
the major killing grounds of modern times” – a history of the Congo. |
|
|
Itano, Nicole |
No place left to bury the dead:
denial, despair and hope in the African aids pandemic Shows the world how the
transformation of a few courageous women can heal entire communities,
eradicate denial and increase global awareness of the worst epidemic in human
history |
|
Keane, Fergal |
The bondage of fear: a journey through the last white
empire |
|
Maislish, David |
White slave: based on the journal of James Riley The
true story of captain James Riley and his crew of ten men, who were
shipwrecked off the coast of West Africa in 1815. Captured by locals, they
are enslaved and suffer years of abuse and intolerable hardships |
|
Meredith, Martin |
The state of Africa: fifty years
of a continent in crisis |
|
Perrois, Louis |
Fang Fang art is the most emblematic of all the arts of
Black Africa. This book investigates various Fang artefacts - statue heads,
masks, headdresses, jewellery, musical instruments, everyday utensils. |
|
Rees, Sian |
Sweet water and bitter: the ships
that stopped the slave trade |
|
Silvester, Hans |
Natural fashion: tribal decoration
from Africa |
|
Williams, Susan |
Colour bar: the triumph of Seretse
Khama and his nation The
story of how the first president of Botswana was forced into exile because of
his relationship with a white woman. |