...And Other Stories

Looking for some summer reading? Why not revisit some favorite novels, stories, poems, and essays by Black writers whose influence has changed the course of literature—especially in the South.

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I distinctly remember the first time I read James Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues" in my seventh-grade English class. Not only was it my first introduction to the author I would later hold dear as one of the most inimitable writers in the American lexicon, but it was an experience I attribute to maturing my interest in the craft of writing itself. This summer, we at Country Roads have been inspired to take a look back at some of the books by Black authors who have influenced us the most, and without whom our country's literary heritage would be sorely lacking. 

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin

An artful image of 1960s Harlem, this collection originally published in The New Yorker contains two autobiographical essays: "My Dungeon Shook—Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down At The Cross—Letter from a Region of My Mind." Taking cues from Baldwin's gifts for narrative fiction, the essays sprawl with imagery, insight, and anecdote, and finish with one of the most soul-shattering closing lines in all of literature. 

Passing, by Nella Larsen

Born Nellie Walker in Chicago, Illinois, Larsen was the daughter of a mixed-race Afro-Caribbean immigrant father from the Danish West Indies and a Danish immigrant mother. A nurse by profession, she worked in the Bronx through the 1918 flu pandemic in mostly white neighborhoods and with white colleagues, later embracing her literary leanings to become the first black woman to graduate from the NYPL Library School. In this lesser-known short novel of the Harlem Renaissance, the middle-class Manhattanite Irene Redfield—whose mixed-race ancestry allows her to "pass" as a white woman in public spaces—sees her life thrown upside down by a chance encounter with a childhood friend.

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

Winner of the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, this novel is a sardonic, elegant bildungsroman following an unnamed young black man from his home in the South to the various thresholds of New York City as he searches for purpose and identity. A masterclass in language and interiority, the story chronicles many of the core social and philosophical issues African Americans encountered in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, Marxism, reformist racial policies, and so much more.

Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Though perhaps among the most famous of Morrison's novels, having won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, Beloved is only one of the renowned author's masterworks of character-driven literature. Written almost in the tone of a horror story—and ghosts here you will find—the story follows the life of Sethe, who was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, and who finds herself—even eighteen years later—still held captive by the events of her past, especially after the unannounced visit of a mysterious girl who calls herself Beloved.

The Tradition, by Jericho Brown

We've got another Pulitzer winner on our hands! The newest poet to enter that celebrated group, Jericho Brown was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and graduated with his MFA from the University of New Orleans. The beauty of Brown's poetry owes much to the tradition of nature's pull, calling often upon the wild beauty of the South to conjure pain and passion in equal measure. You will never leave his work without a pull on your heart and a question in your mind, as seen in favorites like "The Trees" and "Another Elegy ["This is what our dying looks like"]."

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

A masterclass in dialectic writing, this tale of independent black womanhood takes the African American experience to the oft-overlooked swamps of central Florida, where Janie Crawford—forced into marriage as a teenager—learns how to handle the reins of her own business, her own town, and her own life, even under the constant pressures of poverty and prejudice.

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Perhaps just as famous for its adaptations as a successful stage musical and film, Alice Walker's seminal novel has been a popular target of censors over the years, with its scenes of violence and explicit despair enough to make even the most seasoned reader want to close its cover and be done forever. But there's a reason why this book has stood the test of time—the story of Celie, a young black girl living between the world wars who rages against poverty, abuse, and segregation, is practically made of a fabric of heartstrings. 

The Poetry of Langston Hughes

Often referred to as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes' work is an ideal introduction to the form of "jazz poetry," a rhythmic and emotive style owing much to the influence of Walt Whitman, seen most famously in poems like "I, Too" and "Montage of a Dream Deferred," both of which illuminate the experience of feeling cast out and invisible amidst the cultural, artistic, and social prejudices of mid-century America. 

Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia Butler

A rare black female author recognized by the science fiction community, Butler has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards multiple times, and in 1995 became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Her collection of short fiction, Bloodchild and Other Stories, operates almost as a series of dark fables, asking readers to examine their existential identity, both in their decisions and in their dealings with their fellows on earth (or beyond it). 

A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines

Another native son of Louisiana, Gaines was an author loved equally for his work as for his heart, and his passing in 2019 sent ripples of grief through the literary community as well as through the Feliciana and Acadiana communities whose people and places influenced so much of his writing. A Lesson Before Dying, set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s, is a staple of summer reading lists for a reason, telling the story of Jefferson, a young black man who, convicted of murders he did not commit and sentenced to death, forms a bond with the university-educated Grant Wiggins that will change the way you look at the world. 

At the Bottom of the River, by Jamaica Kincaid

A short story collection most famous for including one of Kincaid's best-known works, "Girl," At the Bottom of the River is an ample resource for narratives addressing themes of colonialism, sexuality, class, power, adolescence, and even the act of writing itself, all from the pen of an Antiguan-American whose background reads slightly differently than that of a black writer born and raised on American soil. In electric, jolting, and dense prose, Kincaid is another author young readers might encounter first as a young adult, and then return to later with new insights. 

The Poetry of Audre Lorde

As famous for her role in theorizing intersectional feminism as she was for her writing, Lorde—despite her passing in 1992—remains one of the stalwarts of protest poetry in the modern age, and a crusader against the pains of sexism, racism, class conflict, and homophobia. In metered language which takes its time, pulling images from insights and insights from images (as well as all the senses lovingly interpreted), poems like "Movement Song" and "Coal" remain some personal favorites.