AFRICAN AMERICANS IN SPECULATIVE FICTION – A READING PRIMER
I recently spoke at the Kheprw Institute on the history of Black Spec Fic. This is the reading list I provided as a starting point:
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN SPECULATIVE FICTION – A READING PRIMER
Martin Delany
Blake, or the Huts of America (1859)
Charles W. Chesnutt
The Conjure Woman (1899)
Frances Harper
Iola Leroy (1892)
Sutton Griggs
Imperium in Imperio (1899)
Pauline Hopkins
Of One Blood (1902)
Edward A. Johnson
Light Ahead for the Negro (1904)
W. E. B. Du Bois
“The Comet” (1920)
“Jesus Christ in Texas” (1920)
Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Mules and Men (1935)
Tell My Horse (1938)
George Schuyler
Black No More (1931)
Henry Dumas
Echo Tree
Amos Tutuola
The Palm Wine Drinkard (1952)
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954)
Samuel R. Delany
The Jewels of Aptor (1962)
Dhalgren (1975)
“Racism and Science Fiction”
Virginia Hamilton
Zeely (1967)
The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl (1986)
The Justice Trilogy (1978)
Ishmael Reed
Mumbo Jumbo (1972)
Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon (1977)
Beloved (1987)
Octavia E. Butler
Kindred (1979)
“Bloodchild” (1984)
Parable of the Sower (1993)
Fledgling (2005)
Charles Saunders
Imaro (1981)
Gloria Naylor
Mama Day (1988)
Charles R. Johnson
Middle Passage (1990)
Jewelle Gomez
The Gilda Stories (1991)
Christopher Priest (Jim Owsley)
Black Panther v.3 (1998- 2003)
Nalo Hopkinson
Brown Girl in the Ring (1998)
Midnight Robber (2000)
Sandra Jackson-Opoku
The River Where Blood Is Born (1998)
Victor LaValle
Slapboxing with Jesus (1999)
Big Machine (2009)
The Ballad of Black Tom (2016)
Colson Whitehead
The Intuitionist (1999)
Zone One (2011)
The Underground Railroad (2016)
Sheree Renée Thomas
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000)
Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004)
Walter Mosley
Futureland: Nine stories of an imminent future (2001)
Linda D. Addison
Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (2001)
Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (2007)
How to Recognize a Demon has Become your Friend (2011)
Steven Barnes
Lion’s Blood (2002)
Zulu Heart (2003)
Tananarive Due
My Soul to Keep (1997)
The Good House (2003)
Ghost Summer (2015)
L.A. Banks
The Vampire Huntress Legend series (2003-2010)
Crimson Moon series (2008- 2010)
Minister Faust
Coyote Kings of the Space- Age Bachelor Pad (2004)
From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007)
Brandon Massey
Dark Dreams (2004)
Dark Corner (2004)
Andrea Hairston
Mindscape (2006)
Redwood and Wildfire (2011)
Nisi Shawl
Filter House (2008)
Stories for Chip (w/ Bill Campbell 2015)
Wrath James White
The Resurrectionist (2009)
Nnedi Okorafor
Who Fears Death (2010)
Akata Witch (2011)
Binti (2016)
Maurice Broaddus
“Pimp My Airship” (2009)
King Maker (2010)
The Voices of Martyrs (2017)
Helen Oyeyemia
White is for Witching (2010)
Karen Lord
Redemption in Indigo(2010)
N.K. Jemisin
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010)
The Fifth Season (2015)
Chesya Burke
Let’s Play White (2011)
Mat Johnson
Pym (2011)
Milton Davis
Changa’s Safari (2011)
Balogun Ojetade
Moses: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman (2012)
Tobias Buckell
Arctic Rising (2012)
Hurricane Fever (2014)
Sofia Samatar
A Stranger in Olondria (2013)
Bill Campbell
Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond (2013)
Stories for Chip (w/ Nisi Shawl 2015)
Alaya Dawn Johnson
The Summer Prince (2013)
Love Is the Drug (2015)
“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” (2015)
Jenn Brissett
Elysium (2014)
Tade Thompson
Making Wolf (2015)
Kai Ashante Wilson
“The Devil in America” (2015)
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps (2015)
A Taste of Honey (2016)
Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown
Octavia’s Brood (2015)
Marlon James
The Dark Star trilogy (2017)
Shout Outs
John F. Allen
Paula D. Ashe
Michael Boatman
K. Tempest Bradford
Crystal Connor
Errick Dunnally
Andre Duza
Robert Fleming
LR Giles
Seressia Glass
Lawanna Holland-Moore
Valjeanne Jeffers
Jemiah Jefferson
John Edward Lawson
Kai Leakes
Alicia McCalla
Carl Hancock Rux
Geoffrey Thorne
K. Ceres Wright
Check out:
A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction
