“I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos -- and the white man, however intelligent he may be, is incapable of understanding Louis Armstrong or songs from the Congo. I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth.”
― Black Skin, White Masks
― Black Skin, White Masks
“I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy.”
― The Left Hand of Darkness
― The Left Hand of Darkness
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
― The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
― The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
― The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
“Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.”
― The Tombs of Atuan
― The Tombs of Atuan
Literary Fiction by People of Color
— 13247 members
— last activity Mar 14, 2026 03:25AM
This can include genre fiction that is literary (e.g. speculative fiction, historical fiction, etc.), as long as it's written by a person of color (Af ...more
Great African Reads
— 4202 members
— last activity 38 minutes ago
Here is an overview of the group reads & activities: Regional reads Nominations and Book discussions. Buddy Reads Find someone to read along with!. Sh ...more
k’s 2025 Year in Books
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