Poet. Columnist. Playwrite. Novelist. Activist.
Langston Hughes in the form of Jesse B. Simple, may be singled handedly responsible for my love of African American literature.
Octavia Butler, an African-American writer and the only science fiction writer (as of 2011) ever to be a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius grant", died February 24, 2006 after a fall at her home. She was 58.
If you have not had the pleasure of reading Octavia Butler, visit your local library or bookstore and inquire.
In A Taste of Salt, Martha Southgate tells the moving story of a family tested to the limits by an unending cycle of addiction over the course of two generations.
Martha Southgate is the author of two acclaimed novels, The Fall of Rome and Third Girl from the Left and other works that have been widely anthologized. A graduate of Smith College, she has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard, and has taught at Brooklyn College and The New School.
Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered.
Breaking Ice was published in 1990 when books by African American authors where few and far between. Over 20 years later, this anthology continues to be great addition for readers interested in Contemporary Fiction. The anthology features well known and emerging authors like J. California Cooper, Marita Golden, Gloria Naylor, Darryl Pinckney, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Ishmael Reed, Paule Marshall, and many many more.