Belated happy birthday Sapphire! Born August 4, Ramona Lofton better known by her pen name Sapphire, is an African American author and performance poet. She is well known for her novel, Push. She has authored additional novels and collections of poetry.
Belated happy birthday Thulani Davis! Born July 19, is an African American playwright, journalist, librettist, novelist, poet, and screenwriter. She is a graduate of Barnard College and attended graduate school at both the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Here are some of her notable works:
Belated heavenly birthday wishes Dorothy West! Born June 2, 1907, Dorothy West was an African American novelist, short-story writer, and magazine editor associated with the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement in the 1920s and 1930s that celebrated black art, literature, and music. She passed away in 1998. Her most notable works are The Wedding and The Living is Easy.
Happy birthday Jesmyn Ward! Born April 1, 1977, Jesmyn Ward won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for her second novel Salvage the Bones. Other books are:
Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins was born in Portland, Maine in 1859. She was a playwright, journalist, novelist, historian, editor, feminist, public intellectual, supporter of the arts, and an outspoken crusader for African American rights. She is considered a pioneer in her use of the romantic novel to explore social and racial themes and is best known for her 1900 novel Contending Forces: A Romance of Negro Life North and South.
Celebrating his 83rd birthday March 22, Houston A. Baker, Jr. is a scholar s an American scholar specializing in African-American literature and Distinguished University Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. Here are a few of his books:
Earlier this month, our book club met to discuss the book Erasure by Percival Everett. Erasure was adapted to a movie titled “American Fiction.” I did not see the movie, although it did receive good reviews. Erasure is an excellent book and in my humble opinion, I think Percival Everett is brilliant. The complexity of characters, the theme of black identity, and what does not black enough mean, the publishing industry marketing of African American novels, family, love relationships, the novel within the novel just made this book part satire and very thought provoking. A must read!
NPR reviewed this book. Read the review here:
Today, February 9, Alice Walker celebrates her 82nd birthday! Known for The Color Purple, Alice Walker has written essays, novels, and poetry. A few are show below. To read more about her, click here.
Born January 25, Gloria Naylor was an award winning novelist. She was named the winner of the National Book Award, first novel, Women of Brewster Place. She passed away in 2016. Read more about this award-winning author here:
A few of her well-known novels:
The Women of Brewster Place
Mama Day
Linden Hills
Bailey’s Cafe
Born January 21, Mary Helen Washington is an African American literary scholar who is the author of numerous books on the African-American female experience.
Her most notable books are can be found here:
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