Kategoria BISAC: Fiction >> African American & Black - Historical

Ranging from the 17th century to our current moment, and crossing multiple continents, Counternarratives' stories and novellas draw upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, interrogation transcripts, and speculative fiction to create new and strange perspectives on our past and present. An Outtake chronicles an escaped slave s take on liberty and the American Revolution;"The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows" presents a bizarre series of events that unfold in a nineteenth-century Kentucky convent; "The Aeronauts" soars between bustling Philadelphia, still-rustic...

Fifteen-year-old Jaiye is an African tribesman who has grown up amid constant warring between his tribe, the Yoruba, and their neighbors. As he curiously watches Yoruba prisoners of war paraded to a slave ship, Jaiye contemplates their future and anxiously awaits his foray into manhood when he will fight in the same battles and marry the woman the village elders have chosen for him. Unfortunately, she is not the same woman Jaiye has chosen for himself.

Infatuated with a Yoruba girl named Kembi, Jaiye petitions his high priest father to help him change the elder's plans. When his...

Todd steams into Memphis just as the blues begin oozing up out of the juke joints into the white establishments lining Beale Street. During the next week he seeks out the latest sounds in the honky-tonks and gentlemen's clubs. But after hearing the ragged, personal lyrics of a lone guitarist sitting in a dimly lit corner of a squalid speakeasy, Todd knows now how he wants to spend the rest of his life--writing songs, riding the circuit, and playing the blues.

Sad to say, Todd soon learns "life has a way of tearing up track and bending the rails."

This fourth book in the...

The author of City of Refuge returns with a startling and powerful novel of race, violence, and identity set on the eve of the Civil War.

The year is 1855. Blackface minstrelsy is the most popular form of entertainment in a nation about to be torn apart by the battle over slavery. Henry Sims, a fugitive slave and a brilliant musician, has escaped to Philadelphia, where he earns money living by his wits and performing on the street. He is befriended by James Douglass, leader of a popular minstrel troupe struggling to compete with dozens of similar ensembles, who imagines that...

It is the summer that man first walks on the moon, the Vietnam War is dragging into its sixth year, and riots are breaking out in American cities. At a black pride university two young men on opposite sides of the racial divide come to know an elderly and enigmatic teacher with the reputation of an Uncle Tom. Through the power of Professor Doswell's character and the unfolding of his mysterious past, their lives are transformed.

Inspired in part by the true story of Whittaker Chambers, this novel is grounded in meticulous research based largely on discoveries from the previously...

A widowed grandmother ready to spread her wings. A 12-year-old granddaughter looking for a summertime adventure. Together, they are going to attempt the impossible.

In Charleston, South Carolina, the summer of 1964, Ida Trueluck moves into her son's house after losing her beloved husband of 40 years. Living with her son's family is quite an adjustment--her daughter-in-law is a bit uptight--and she's trying to figure out who she is on her own.

Her saving grace is her 12-year-old granddaughter Trudy. Smart and feisty, Trudy and her best friend Vel--short for Velvet, who wears...

In 1917, revolution rocks Mexico, while just across the border, African-American soldiers plunge the U.S. Army into crisis as they rebel against Jim Crow laws at army camps in Houston and Brownsville. Harrison James is caught in this maelstrom of violence when he travels to the Southwest to investigate the mysterious death of his brother who had commanded a company of African-American soldiers.

He meets the beautiful Maria Washington, notorious gunrunner and revolutionary wanted on both sides of the border. Their romance sizzles while his list of suspects grows. James is quickly...

Seven short stories from one of the most influential African-American authors of the early twentieth century have been edited for modern readers. Changes include standardized spellings and replacement of offensive terms. The bones of the stories are just as he told them with no changes to plot or settings. Best of all the book includes the original unedited versions in appendixes, and the author's essay about Southern folklore.
The Goophered Grapevine: A conjured slave finds his life closely mirroring the grapevines on his plantation.
Poor...

Liverpool, 1752. William Kemp has lost a fortune in cotton speculation, and must recoup his losses if his son is to marry the wealthy woman whom he loves. His last resort is a slave ship, one that will take him to the Guinea coast, where he will trade for human cargo, then embark on the infamous Middle Passage. When disease ravages the ship and the African prisoners mutiny, William's profit-seeking venture falls apart. Slaves and sailors alike will join together to found a utopian community on the coast of Florida--not knowing that the vengeful, younger...

A deadly automobile accident has claimed the life of a young Negro woman in a segregated Louisianan community. Her brother becomes suspicious after hearing rumors that she was kidnapped and her death staged as part of a cover up. When a friend decides to look into it certain people of authority grow apprehensive.
Paul Matthews is a typical, happy teenager until he gets involved in a deadly search for clues surrounding Annie Thompson's death. Most people in town are against him, believing things are best left alone, but he and his friends continue to pry. It's a dangerous undertaking....

In this vivid reimagining of the French classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses, it's the summer when Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball's color barrier and a sweltering stretch has Harlem's elite fleeing the city for Westchester County's breezier climes, two predators stalk amidst the manicured gardens and fine old homes.

Heiress Mae Malveaux rules society with an angel's smile and a heart of stone. She made up her mind long ago that nobody would decide her fate. To have the pleasure she craves, control is paramount, especially control of the men Mae attracts like moths...

I have been to hangings before, but never my own.

Sitting in a jail cell on the eve of his hanging, April 1, 1875, freedman...

'All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. It's the best book we've had.' Ernest Hemingway

Ground-breaking in its vernacular English language, it is still...