Moving Nonfiction by Black Authors

From the women’s basketball icon and two-time Olympic gold medalist — a raw, revelatory account of her unfathomable detainment in Russia and her journey home. In Coming Home, Brittney finally shares the harrowing details of her sudden arrest days before Russia invaded Ukraine; her isolation while navigating a foreign legal system amid her trial and sentencing; her emotional and physical anguish as the first American woman ever to endure a Russian penal colony while the #WeAreBG movement rallied for her release; the chilling prisoner swap with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; and her remarkable rise from hostage to global spokesperson on behalf of America’s forgotten. In haunting detail, Brittney takes readers inside the horrors of a geopolitical nightmare.

Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison investigates Black characters in the American literary canon and the way they shaped the nation’s collective unconscious.

When Edward Enninful became the first Black editor-in-chief of British Vogue, few in the world of fashion wanted to confront how it failed to represent the world we live in. But Edward, a champion of inclusion throughout his life, rapidly changed that. A Visible Man traces an astonishing journey into one of the world’s most exclusive industries. Edward candidly shares how as a Black, gay, working-class refugee, he found in fashion not only a home but the freedom to share with people the world as he saw it. Written with style, grace, and heart, A Visible Man shines a spotlight on the career of one of the greatest creative minds of our times. It is the story of a visionary who changed not only an industry but how we understand beauty.

In this eagerly awaited new collection, Zadie Smith brings her unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Throughout this thrilling collection, Smith shows us once again her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times.

Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician — to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

A glorious chronicle of a life like none other — enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering — and a testament to the world-changing power of Black motherhood. Matriarch is one brilliant woman’s intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America — and the wisdom that women pass on to each other, mothers to daughters, across generations.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson has lived in the thrall of a cast of others — her parents and maternal grandmother, jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes, and stars. These are the figures who thrill and trouble her, and who have made up her sense of self as a person and as a writer. In Constructing a Nervous System, Jefferson shatters her self into pieces and recombines them into a new and vital apparatus on the page, fusing the criticism that she is known for, fragments of the family members she grieves for, and signal moments from her life, as well as the words of those who have peopled her past and accompanied her in her solitude, dramatized here like never before.

An award-winning sexuality educator takes down society’s deeply entrenched colonial views on sex and gender throughout history in this accessible, candid, and revolutionary exploration of how we can — and should — reclaim our minds and bodies for a more pleasurable existence for all.

Aurora James’s life is a great American “success story” — precisely because it looks so different from others we’ve seen. Already a rising star and trailblazer in fashion, she posted a revolutionary idea in the wake of George Floyd’s murder that challenged retailers to commit 15 percent of their shelf space to Black businesses. This became the Fifteen Percent Pledge, one of the fastest-growing social justice nonprofits. Wildflower is the riveting story of how Aurora James made an indelible mark on the American economic system and a rallying cry for those eager to make change.

A “powerful” (The Guardian) reflection on basketball, life, and home — from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America. There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus — whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance — Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

The Sum of Us is a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone — not just for people of color. Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy — and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: Racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy, and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?

Virgil Abloh’s appointment as head of menswear for Louis Vuitton in 2018 shocked the fashion industry, as he became the first Black designer to serve as artistic director in the brand’s 164-year history. But as Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic Robin Givhan reveals, Abloh’s story encompasses so much more than his own journey. Make It Ours is “an illuminating … biography and cultural history” (The New York Times) of Virgil Abloh’s iconic rise to the top of the fashion industry, which embodied a groundbreaking transformation of the relationship between who we are and what we wear.

Renata Cherlise’s family loved capturing their lives in photographs and home movies, sparking her love of archival photography. Following in her family’s footsteps, Cherlise established Black Archives, which presents a nuanced representation of Black people across time living vibrant, ordinary lives. Through the platform, many have discovered and shared images of themselves and their loved ones experiencing daily life, forming multidimensional portraits of people, places, and the Black community. These photographs not only tell captivating stories, they hold space for collective memory and kinship.

Longtime NBC News reporter Char Adams writes a deeply compelling and rigorously reported history of Black political movements told through the lens of Black-owned bookstores, which have been centers for organizing from abolition to the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter.

The first major biography of one of our most influential judges — an activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary — that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th century.

Fearless and Free is the memoir of the “trailblazing” (People), rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker, the iconic dancer, singer, spy, and Civil Rights activist. First published in France in 1949, her memoir is now finally published in English. At last we can hear Josephine in her own voice: Charming, passionate, and brave. Through her own telling, we come to know a woman who danced to the top of the world and left her unforgettable mark on it.

An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.

In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: The Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.

Every family has a story. For some of us, our family of origin is a solid foundation that feeds our confidence and helps us navigate life’s challenges. For others, it’s a source of pain, hurt, and conflict that can feel like a lifelong burden. In this empowering guide, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers clear advice for identifying dysfunctional family patterns and choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and moving forward.

The untold story of the Black patriots — from soldiers in combat to peace protestors — who ended the Vietnam War and defended the soul of American democracy, from a pre-eminent civil rights historian and the award-winning author of Half American. Vivid, revelatory, and meticulously researched, Until the Last Gun Is Silent is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the enduring legacy of Black military service, protest, and patriotism in the United States.

From author and wellness personality Chrissy King, an exciting, genre-redefining narrative mix of memoir, inspiration, activities, and prompts, with timely messages about social and racial justice and how the world needs to move beyond body positivity to something even more exciting and revolutionary: Body liberation. Recognizing that none of us are free until all of us are, Chrissy King shares the wisdom, the tools, and the inspiration to motivate readers to find body liberation and, even more important, to pass it on.

How can I become part of the solution? In the wake of the social unrest of 2020 and growing calls for racial justice, many business leaders and ordinary citizens are asking that very question. This book provides a compass for all those seeking to begin the work of anti-racism. In The Conversation, Robert Livingston addresses three simple but profound questions: What is racism? Why should everyone be more concerned about it? What can we do to eradicate it? Social change requires social exchange. Founded on principles of psychology, sociology, management, and behavioral economics, The Conversation is a road map for uprooting entrenched biases and sharing candid, fact-based perspectives on race that will lead to increased awareness, empathy, and action.

“I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.” Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and bestselling author Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines — whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt — has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance.

A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present. Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.

A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a “deeply layered and insightful” (The Washington Post) testament to people who are left out of the archives. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today.

The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself.