“Do the books on your shelf reflect the kind of world that you want?” – Kwame Alexander
This list of books by Black Canadian writers was compiled by Azuke Kamdibe and shared here with permission. We’ve added a few titles to the list (indicated by an *). This is not a complete list, of course, but it’s a good start.
Non-Fiction
- Dear Current Occupant by Chelene Knight
- Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature by Wayde Compton
- After Canaan by Wayde Compton
- Being Brown: A Very Public Life by Rosemary Brown
- I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to my Daughter by David Chariandy
- From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People
by Lorna Goodison * - Black Writers Matter, edited by Whitney French
- Blank by M. NourbeSe Philip
- In the Black by B. Denham Jolly
- The Hanging Of Angelique by Afua Cooper
- North of the Color Line by Sarah-Jane Mathieu
- Queer Returns by Rinaldo Walcott
- Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present by Robyn Maynard
- They Call Me George by Cecil Foster
- ‘Membering by Austin Clarke
- Angry Queer Somali Boy by Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali
- Shame on Me by Tessa McWatt
- The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole
- The Stone Thrower by Jael Richardson
- Until We Are Free, edited by Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson and Syrus Marcus Ware
- Black Life Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom by Rinaldo Walcott & Idil Abdillahi
- They Said This Would Be Fun by Eternity Martis
Fiction
- Brother by David Chariandy
- A Credit to Your Race by Truman Green
- The Outer Harbour: Stories by Wayde Compton
- Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan *
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan *
- The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan *
- Reproduction by Ian Williams *
- Not Anyone’s Anything by Ian Williams *
- Things Are Good Now by Djamila Ibrahim
- Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
- The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
- Accordéon by Kaie Kellough
- The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
- Any Known Blood by Lawrence Hill
- Shut Up You’re Pretty by Téa Mutonji
- The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
- Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough
- Africville by Jeffrey Colvin
Poetry
- Burning Sugar by Cicely Belle Blain
- The Gospel of Breaking by Jillian Christmas
- How She Read by Chantal Gibson
- 100 Days by Juliane Okot Bitek
- Collected Poems by Lorna Goodison *
- By Love Possessed by Lorna Goodison *
- Oracabessa by Lorna Goodison *
- Personals by Ian Williams *
- You Know Who You Are by Ian Williams *
- Voodoo Hypothesis by Canisia Lubrin
- Land to Light On by Dionne Brand
- Magnetic Equator by Kaie Kellough
- Sonnet’s Shakespeare by Sonnet L’Abbé
- Execution Poems by George Elliott Clarke
- I Am Still Your Negro: An Homage to James Baldwin by Valerie Mason-John *
- The Great Black North: Contemporary African Canadian Poetry, edited by Valerie Mason-John and Kevan Anthony Cameron *
Books for Children
- The Stone Thrower by Jael Richardson *
- Malaika’s Winter Carnival by Nadia L. Hohn
- Boonoonoonous Hair! by Olive Senior, illustrated by Laura James
- My Hair is Beautiful by Shauntay Grant
- The Madman of Piney Woods by Christopher Paul Curtis
- Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged! by Jody Nyasha Warner