African American Writers

Here are just a few well known African American writers to get you started.

Danai Gurira

Gurira said that she began writing plays in an effort to better utilize her strengths as an actress, and to tell stories that convey ideas about strong women with whom she identifies. - Wiki

Lorraine Hansberry

Hansberry was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. -Wiki

Trevor Noah (Talk Show Host and Writer)

Noah's autobiographical comedy book Born a Crime was published in 2016 and garnered critical acclaim. - Wiki

Maya Angelou

She wrote 7 autobiographies. Angelou's long and extensive career also included poetry, plays, screenplays for television and film, directing, acting, and public speaking. - Wiki

Lanston Hughes

An American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. One of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. - Wiki

James Baldwin

An American novelist, playwright, and activist. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century North America. - Wiki

10 Black Authors Everyone Should Read -PBS, Forbes, Famous Authors

Black Male Writers of Our Time - NYT

25 Books by Contemporary Black Authors - Penguin Random House

50 Amazing Books By Black Authors From The Past 5 Years - Huffpo

'Black characters are still revolutionary’: writers talk about the complexity of race - The Guardian

14 Black Women Writers to Read Year-Round - YW Boston

15 Books to Read by Black Female American Writers - NYT

Contemporary Black Women's Literature - Goodreads