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Home and Exile by Chinua Achebe (Anchor Books)

More personally revealing than anything Chinua Achebe has written, Home and Exile is a monumental statement about the importance of stories as the real sources of power. In the three elegant essays that comprise his first book in over ten years, Achebe examines the impact of several acclaimed African novels and argues for the retelling of the African experience through the voices of Africans in order to dispel historical distortions.

Race Matters by Cornel West (Vintage Books)
With a New Preface by the Author

Cornel West's groundbreaking classic returns with a new introduction, reaffirming its position as the bestselling, most influential, and most original articulation of the urgent issues in America's ongoing racial debate. Bold in its thought and written with a redemptive passion grounded in the tradition of the African American church, Race Matters is a book that is at once challenging and deeply healing.

The Future Has a Past: Stories by J. California Cooper (Anchor Books)

From the beloved author of Family and A Piece of Mine comes a dazzling collection of short stories celebrating the lives and loves of ordinary women. From a single mother getting a second chance at love in "The Eagle Flies," to a woman who reclaims her self-respect when she confronts her womanizing boyfriend in "The Lost and the Found," to a girl who suffers a betrayal that leads her to a life she never thought she'd find in "A Filet of Soul," The Future Has a Past bursts with the signature wisdom and compassion that are true testaments to Cooper's gifts as a storyteller. Read an excerpt and print our free Reading Group Guide.

More Books of African American Interest from Vintage and Anchor Books:

• African American Profiles
  
• Current Affairs
  
• Fiction
  
• History
  
• Nonfiction
  
• Poetry and Drama
  

• An American Story by Deborah J. Dickerson (Anchor Books)
  In this courageous and insightful memoir, Debra J. Dickerson recounts her story as a black woman in America, struggling to find identity and self-acceptance in a white man's world. The daughter of former sharecroppers, Dickerson rose from poverty to become an acclaimed journalist, Air Force officer, and Harvard Law degree recipient, wrestling with issues of class, race, feminism, and politics along the way. Her straightforward approach and unrelenting determination will inspire reading groups while encouraging fruitful discussion. Read an excerpt and print our free Reading Group Guide.

• Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It by David Robertson (Vintage Books)
  In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, David Robertson illuminates the shadowy figure who planned a slave rebellion so daring that, if successful, it might have changed the face of the antebellum South. This is the story of a man who, like Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X, is a complex yet seminal hero in the history of African American emancipation.

• God, Dr. Buzzard and the Bolito Man: A Saltwater Geechee Talks About Life on Sapelo Island, Georgia by Cornelia Walker Bailey with Christena Bledsoe (Anchor Books)
  Cornelia Walker Bailey models herself after the African griot, the tribal storytellers who keep the history of their people. Bailey's people are the Geechee, whose cultural identity has been largely preserved due to the relative isolation of Sapelo, a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. In this rich account, Bailey captures the experience of growing up in an island community that counted the spirits of its departed among its members, relied on pride and ingenuity in the face of hardship, and taught her firsthand how best to reap the bounty of the marshes, woods, and ocean that surrounded her. Read an excerpt.

• In the Garden of our Dreams: Memoirs of a Marriage by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip and Harold C. Haizlip (Anchor Books)
  Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, bestselling author of The Sweeter the Juice, and her husband, Harold C. Haizlip describe, with unwavering commitment to each other, their families, and their race, what hard work, good luck, and most important, unshakable love can accomplish.

• King of the World by David Remnick (Vintage Books)
  No one has captured Muhammed Ali--and the era that he exhilarated and sometimes infuriated--with greater vibrancy, drama and astuteness than David Remnick, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lenin's Tomb (and editor of The New Yorker). In charting Ali's rise from the gyms of Louisville, Kentucky, to his epochal fights against Liston and Floyd Patterson, Remnick creates a canvas of unparalleled richness. Most of all, King of the World does justice to the speed, grace, courage, humor, and ebullience of one of the greatest athletes and irresistibly dynamic personalities of our time.

• Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt by Jack Olsen (Anchor Books)
  Jack Olsen's Last Man Standing is the gripping story of Geronimo Pratt, war hero and community leader, who was framed by the FBI in one of the greatest travesties of justice in American history. Geronimo Pratt did not commit the murder for which he served twenty-seven nightmarish years. As a UCLA student, though, he had led the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and became a target of the FBI. Here is the spellbinding saga of Pratt, his heroic lawyers, Johnnie Cochran and Stuart Hanlon, and the Reverend James McCloskey, who overcame all the odds to bring the truth to light. Read an interview with the author.

• Mandela: The Authorized Biography by Anthony Sampson (Vintage Books)
  Perhaps the world's most admired leader, Nelson Mandela triumphed over imprisonment to lead South Africa out of the shackles of apartheid and into democratic freedom. Now, in the first authorized biography of this cultural and political icon, Anthony Sampson delves behind the dazzling image and into the core of a man whose exemplary courage and inspired conviction changed the course of history.

• The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad (Vintage Books)
  With this explosive biography of Elijah Muhammad, investigative journalist Karl Evanzz recounts the controversial life of a semiliterate man who rose out of the Jim Crow South to co-found the Nation of Islam. Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of black America, The Messenger is a daring and intimate portrait of a complex figure.

• Remember Me to Harlem (Vintage Books)
  The Harlem Renaissance comes to life in this collection of letters exchanged during a forty-year correspondence between the black poet and novelist Langston Hughes and the flamboyant white critic and photographer Carl Van Vechten. Hughes was twenty-two and Van Vechten forty-four when they began a lifelong friendship, and between them they knew everyone from Zora Neale Hurston to Richard Wright. Filled with gossip, as well as political and social debate, these letters provide an unusual and precious record of a fascinating era of American politics and culture. Read an excerpt and an interview with the author.

• The Seventh Child: A Lucky Life by Freddie Mae Baxter (Vintage Books)
  In The Seventh Child, Freddie Mae Baxter--75 years old, compassionate, hauntingly wise--tells her story and the story of the twentieth century in her own charming, unforgettable voice. Heartwarming, vivid, illuminating, Baxter's story celebrates the bounty of life's simple joys and introduces an American soul to be cherished. Read an interview with the author.

• Doing What's Right: How to Fight for What You Believe and Make a Difference by Tavis Smiley (Anchor Books)
  Black Entertainment Television (BET) talk show host Tavis Smiley, in an impassioned call to arms, sets forth the tools we can use to stand up for what we believe in and help transform our communities, our lives, and our world. Read an excerpt.

• How to Make Black America Better: Leading African Americans Speak Out by Tavis Smiley (Anchor Books)
  Following up his passionate cultural call to arms in Doing What's Right, popular radio and television commentator Tavis Smiley builds on those efforts by rallying the African American community to constructive social action in How to Make Black America Better. Smiley and countless other leading African American artists, intellectuals, and politicians lend their voices to this pragmatic, solutions-oriented collection of essays stressing the importance of family, education, community, and political involvement in shaping a new vision of America--one in which African Americans realize the potential of their own leadership and take action. Read an excerpt.

• The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski (Vintage International)
  More than just a record of four decades of reporting, Kapuscinski immerses his readers in the culture of Africa as he recounts political and social upheavals following the end of colonial rule. The result is a portrait of a continent that challenges conventional understanding.

• Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics by Anna Deavere Smith (Anchor Books)
  Believing that character and language are inextricably bound, Smith sets out to discern the essence of America by listening to its people and trying to capture its politics. Along the way she interviews everyone from janitors to murderers to Bill Clinton himself, melding their voices into a blend of memoir, social commentary, and meditation on language that is as vastly ambitious as it is compellingly unique. Read an excerpt.

• Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Century by Randall Kenan (Vintage Books)
  From the author of the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Let the Dead Bury Their Dead comes a moving, cliche shattering group portrait of African-Americans at the turn of the twenty-first century. In a hypnotic blend of oral history and travel writing, Kenan sets out to answer a question that has has long fascinated him: What does it mean to be black in America today? Read an excerpt and an interview with the author.

• Abide with Me by E. Lynn Harris (Anchor Books)
  National Bestseller

  In this hotly anticipated conclusion to his popular Invisible Life trilogy, E. Lynn Harris delivers a masterful tale that traces the evolving lives of his beloved characters Nicole Springer and Raymond Tyler, Jr. and reintroduces readers to their respective lovers, best friends, and potential enemies. Abide With Me moves between the worlds of New York City, where Nicole has recently settled in order to pursue her dream of returning to the Broadway stage, and Seattle, where a late night phone call from a United States Senator is about to change Raymond's life dramatically. Relationships and ambitions are tested as Harris deftly guides us toward this delicious novel's conclusion. Read an interview with the author.

• Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses isegawa (Vintage International)
  A haunting and passionate first novel, Abyssinian Chronicles is the story of a young man in Uganda who, after surviving the reign of Idi Amin, goes on to endure the ravages of war, poverty, AIDS, and familial problems, yet is able to keep a hopeful outlook for the future. Read an excerpt.

• And This Too Shall Pass by E. Lynn Harris (Anchor Books)
  National Bestseller

  In his stunning third novel, Harris takes us into the locker rooms and newsrooms of Chicago, where four lives are about to intersect in romance and scandal. At the heart of the novel is the celibate Zurich, a rookie quarterback for the Chicago Cougars whose trajectory for superstardom is interrupted by a sexual assault charge by Mia, a sportscaster with her own sights on fame. With his career in jeopardy, Zurich hires Tamela, a high-powered attorney, to defend him, while Sean, a gay sportswriter, covers the story and uncovers his heart. Read an interview with the author.

• The Atlantic Sound by Caryl Phillips (Vintage International)
  In this fascinating inquiry, celebrated travel essayist Caryl Phillips embarks on a journey to the three major ports of the transatlantic slave trade. Supplementing his own present-day observations with historically accurate stories, Phillips reveals the global impact of this phase in history. Read an excerpt.

• Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (Vintage Contemporaries)
  At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti--to the women who first reared her. Read a interview with the author.

• The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories by Nella Larsen (Anchor Books)
  This new collection, complete with an introduction by Charles R. Larson, is a fitting tribute to one of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance. In stories that brilliantly evoke atmosphere and character, Larsen's heroines struggle to find a place for themselves in a hostile world.

• Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham (Anchor Books)
  Gabriel Lynch isn't pleased when his family moves from a brownstone in Baltimore to a hovel on a homestead in Kansas, nor does he like the prospect of toiling on the untamed prairie. Joining up with a motley crew headed for Texas, Gabriel gets caught up in a terrifying trek that seems headed for a devastating end. A Western adventure with a moral twist, Gabriel's Story exhibits the promising work of a bright new talent. Read an excerpt and print our free Reading Group Guide.

• If This World Were Mine by E. Lynn Harris (Anchor Books)
  National Bestseller
  Set in Chicago, If This World Were Mine introduces four old friends who have known each other since their college days at Hampton Institute. Their lives have all gone in different directions, but they still manage to meet once a month at a gathering filled with gossip, humor, and affirmation, where they share their personal diaries and keep a collective journal of hopes for the future. However, the once-strong bonds of friendship have become strained over time and when a stranger comes into their group, they are forced to confront their true feelings toward each other. And when one of them faces death, the crisis forces the friends to recognize and accept the inner strength that the group has nurtured in each of them. Read an interview with the author.

• The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead (Anchor Books)
  Two warring factions in the Department of Elevator Inspectors in a bustling metropolis vie for dominance: The Empiricists, who go by the book and rigorously check every structural and mechanical detail, and the Intuitionists, whose observational methods involve meditation and instinct. Lila Mae Watson, the city's first black female inspector and a devout Intuitionist with the highest accuracy rate in the department, is at the center of the turmoil. An elevator in a new municipal building has crashed on Lila Mae's watch, fanning the flames of the Empiricist-Intuitionist feud and compelling Lila Mae to go underground to investigate. As she endeavors to clear her name, she becomes entangled in a web of intrigue that leads her to a secret that will change her life forever. Read an excerpt.

• Invisible Life by E. Lynn Harris (Anchor Books)
  The first novel in Harris's acclaimed Invisible Life trilogy introduces Raymond Winston Tyler, Jr., a young black professional who, discovering his bisexuality as he graduates from college, spends the next eight years trying alternately to face and deny the truth. Read an interview with the author.

• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Vintage International)
  In a pioneering work of African American fiction, Ralph Ellison sends his naive hero through almost every social stratum to address the complex components of racism in America.

• Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison (Vintage International)
  National Bestseller
  Published to widespread critical acclaim, the long-awaited second novel from Ralph Ellison--author of the classic novel of African-American experience, Invisible Man. Read an excerpt.

• Just As I Am by E. Lynn Harris (Anchor Books)
  Picking up where Invisible Life left off, Just As I Am follows Raymond and Nicole as they face a new set of joys, conflicts, and choices. Raymond struggles to come to terms with his sexuality and with the grim reality of AIDS, while Nicole experiences frustration in both her career and in her attempts to find a genuine love relationship. Read an interview with the author.

• A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines (Vintage Contemporaries)
  National Bestseller
  National Book Critic Circle Award Winner
  In this poignant novel, Ernest J. Gaines demonstrates the ways in which people stubbornly declare the value of their lives in a time and place where those lives seemingly count for nothing, and where the imprisoned may find freedom even in the moment of their death. Read an excerpt.

• Little Boys Come from the Stars by Emmanuel Dongala (Anchor Books)
  AwardĐwinning Congolese novelist Emmanuel Dongala delivers a touching and profound satire in the tradition of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. It is the story of a turbulent African nation seen through the eyes of a precocious teen who finds his family at the center of a revolution and recounts their reality with a refreshingly innocent voice.

• Not a Day Goes By by E. Lynn Harris (Anchor Books)
  E Lynn Harris is back with a blockbuster bestseller that's juicier--and more scandalous--than ever. John "Basil" Henderson, former professional football player, is finally leaving his playboy lifestyle behind and settling down with the love of his life--ambitious Broadway beauty Yancey Harrington Braxton. On the oustide, these two appear to be perfect for one another, but when a dark secret is exposed right before the wedding, both Yancey and Basil find themselves with more than they bargained for. Read an excerpt and read an interview with the author.

• Push by Sapphire (Vintage Contemporaries)
  Precious Jones, 16 years old and pregnant by her father with her second child, meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption.

• slapboxing with jesus by Victor D. LaValle (Vintage Contemporaries)
  In the tradition of Junot Díaz and Sherman Alexie. Victor D. LaValle's astonishing, violent, and funny debut offers harrowing glimpses at the vulnerable lives of young people who struggle not only to come of age, but to survive the city streets. Written with raw candor, grit, and a cautious heart, slapboxing with jesus introduces an exciting and bold new craftsman of contemporary fiction. LaValle's voices echo long after their stories are told.

• Something's Wrong With Your Scale by Van Whitfield (Anchor Books)
  Sonny Walker is a thirty-something Mr. Nice Guy who's found companionship and comfort with Marsha. The only problem is that he's become too comfortable. Weighing seventy-five pounds more than when the courtship first began, Sonny just can't stay away from Marsha's marvelous dishes, even in the middle of their breakup conversation. In a heartwarming tale that is alternately hilarious, wise, and ultimately self-affirming, Whitfield has created a thoroughly delicious and engaging novel sure to be enjoyed by those who have waged the battle of the bulge, or know someone who has.

• Stigmata by Phyllis Alesia Perry
  When Lizzie Du Bose inherits a handmade quilt willed to her by a maternal grandmother she has never met, her life is forever changed. The figures sewn into the quilt tell the stories of Lizzie's grandmother Grace, and Grace's grandmother Ayo, who was abducted from Africa as a girl and sent as a salve to America. As Lizzie learns, the quilt seems to hold the key to a past that haunts her, at first through terrifyingly lifelike dreams, and finally through visions that seem to take Lizzie back in time, fusing her own life with the lives of Grace and Ayo. A compelling and utterly intruiging tale, Stigmata weaves together the stories of three women at once blessed with a powerful vision, and cursed by a shared legacy of slavery, pain, and struggle.

• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Anchor Books)
  National Bestseller
  Achebe's classic masterpiece--with over 8 million copies in print worldwide--is the most enduring account we have of the modern African experience as seen from within.

• Those Bones Are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara (Vintage Books)
  One morning in 1980 a mother wakes to find her teenage son missing, realizing with horror that he is one of a growing group of black children in Atlanta that have reportedly been kidnapped, brutally assaulted and murdered. Disillusioned with the authorities who react with cold indifference to their plight, Zala and her family embark on a frantic search that throws them into the center of Atlantašs roiling political and racial tensions. Based on actual events, and edited by Toni Morrison, who calls it Bambarašs magnum opus, Those Bones Are Not My Child, is a powerful and enduring chronicle of a tragic chapter in American history.

• A Visitation of Spirits by Randall Kenan (Vintage Books)
  Sixteen-year old Horace Cross is plagued by issues that hover in his impressionable spirit and take shape in his mind as loathsome demons, culminating in one night of horrible and tragic transformation. In the face of Horacešs fate, his cousin Reverend James "Jimmy" Green questions the values of a community that nourishes a boy, places their hopes for salvation on him, only to deny him his destiny.

  Told in a montage of voices and memories, A Visitation of the Spirits shows just how richly populated a familyšs present is with the spirits of the past and the future.

• The Wake of the Wind by J. California Cooper (Anchor Books)
  Opening in Texas in the waning years of the Civil War, The Wake of the Wind tells the dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and their family set out in search of a piece of land they can work and call their own. Miraculously, they manage not only to survive, but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. At once tragic and triumphant, The Wake of the Wind is a penetrating look at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home and a future for themselves and their families.

• The Wedding by Dorothy West (Anchor Books)
  Dorothy West, who died in 1998, was the last surviving member of the fabled Harlem Renaissance. Here she explores the universal truths of race, class, love, and social aspiration in an unforgettable story set in a black enclave on Martha's Vineyard during the 1950s.

• Africa: A Biography of the Continent by John Reader (Vintage Books)
  In a book as splendid in its wealth of information as it is breathtaking in scope, British writer and photojournalist John Reader brings to light Africa's geology and evolution, the majestic array of its land forms and environments, the rich diversity of its peoples and their ways of life, and the devastating legacies of slavery and colonialism as well as recent political troubles and triumphs.

• Autobiography of a People: Three Centuries of African American History Told by Those Who Lived It edited by Herb Boyd (Anchor Books)
  In a triumphantly unique collection, Autobiography of a People showcases 116 diverse voices that recount the African American experience from the Middle Passage to the dawn of a new millennium. From famous figures such as Nat Turner, Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, to ordinary sharecroppers, poets, politicians, and musicians, the words and experiences in these pages weave together a fascinating firsthand narrative of spirituality, courage, and intellect.

• Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching that Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism by Mark Curriden and Leroy Phillips, Jr. (Anchor Books)
  In 1906, an innocent black man in Chatanooga, Tennessee, was sentenced to die for the brutal rape of a white woman. Realizing the grave injustice that had occurred, two black lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution, and the stay, incredibly, was granted. But public outrage at the court's decision was intense, and frenzied with rage, locals responded by lynching Johnson. Contempt of Court is the narrative, detailing not only the event itself but also the momentous whirlwind of groundbreaking legal action that followed, forever changing our legal system and the tenuous relationship between justice and the law. Read an interview with the author.

• Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard, Ph.D. (Anchor Books)
  In Hidden in Plain View, historian Jacqueline Tobin and scholar Raymond Dobard offer the first proof that certain quilt patterns were, in fact, essential tools for escape along the Underground Railroad. Part adventure and part history, Hidden in Plain View traces the origin of the codes from Africa to the Carolinas, from the low-country island Gullah peoples to free blacks living in the cities of the North, and shows how three people from completely different backgrounds pieced together one amazing American story. Read an excerpt.

• Journey to the Vanished City: The Search for a Lost Tribe of Israel by Tudor Parfitt (Vintage Departures)
  In a novelistic mixture of travel, adventure and scholarship, historian Tudor Parfitt sets out in search of answers to a fascinating ethnological puzzle: is the Lemba tribe of Southern Africa really, as its members claim, Jewish? Are they really one of the lost tribes of Israel, descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba?

• Beauty's Daughter, Monster, The Gimmick by Dael Orlandersmith (A Vintage Original)
  The sheer exuberance of language that pours forth in Dael Orlandersmith's plays has dazzled critics and audiences alike. In these three pieces, the award-winning writer and performer celebrates the power of words to rescue the young black women she portrays from their constricted worlds.

• Black Wings and Blind Angels: Poems by Sapphire (Vintage Contemporaries)
  With fierce candor and an unflinching eye, the highly praised author of Push journeys through the harsh realities of African American existence to find the "door to the possibility of now." The heroes that emerge from these forty-seven vigorous poems confront the agony of betrayal as they strive in their quest for self-transformation and redemption.

• Haiku by Richard Wright (Anchor Books)
  Like all great writers, Rchard Wright never failed to create works of breathtaking originality, depth, and beauty. With Native Son, he gave us Bigger Thomas, still one of the most provocative and controversial characters in fiction. With Black Boy he offered a candid and searing depiction of racism and poverty in America. And now, forty years after his death, he bestows upon us one of the finest collections of haiku in American literature.

• The Vintage Book of African American Poetry edited by Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton (Vintage Books)
  In The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, editors Michael Harper and Anthony Walton present the definitive collection of black verse in the United States--200 years of vision, struggle, power, beauty, and triumph from 52 outstanding poets, including Phyllis Wheatley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Elderidge Knight, and more.

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