Happy New Year, everyone!
What books are you excited to read this year? Below are 80 new African, African-American and Caribbean books that look very promising. This is just a snippet of the books 2019 has to offer!
Please click on the images to read the blurbs and/or to purchase the books.
(this post contains Amazon affiliate links)
MORE books to look out for in 2019:
Image via Twitter
The Black Flamingo
by Dean Atta
The Blurb
Fiercely told, this is a timely coming-of-age story, told in verse about the journey to self-acceptance. Perfect for fans of Sarah Crossan, Poet X and Orangeboy.
A boy comes to terms with his identity as a mixed-race gay teen – then at university he finds his wings as a drag artist, The Black Flamingo. A bold story about the power of embracing your uniqueness. Sometimes, we need to take charge, to stand up wearing pink feathers – to show ourselves to the world in bold colour.
To be published August 2019
Image via Ayana Mathis
A Violent Woman by Ayana Mathis
The Blurb
The story of an estranged mother and daughter separated by a thousand miles, the mother’s shadowy past as an itinerant blues singer, and her daughter’s mental illness and recruitment into a radical political group.
Check out my book review of Mathis’s debut novel – The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. I’m really looking forward to this new novel!!
To be published September 2019
Image via Elise Dillsworth Agency
Nudibranch by
The Blurb
Nudibranch is Irenosen Okojie’s second collection of short stories, a follow up to Speak Gigantular which was shortlisted for the 2016 Jhalak Prize and 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize.
The collection focuses on offbeat characters caught up in extraordinary situations – a mysterious woman of the sea in search of love arrives on an island inhabited by eunuchs; dimensional-hopping monks navigating a season of silence face a bloody reckoning in the ruins of an abbey; an aspiring journalist returning from a failed excursion in Sydney becomes what she eats and a darker, Orwellian future is imagined where oddly detached children arrive in cycles and prove to be dangerous in unfamiliar surroundings.
To be published October 2019
Image via The New York Review of Books
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Synopsis
The Fraud is inspired by the real events on North West London (Smith’s childhood home that she has chronicled in most of her novels, most notably NW) from the 1830s to the 1870s.
Also look out for work from: Akwaeke Emezi, Petina Gappah, Talib Kweli
What new releases are you excited about? Please do share!
African Book Addict! 
Looking forward to at least four or five of the poetry collections, and Don’t Touch My Hair, Thick, Lot, that new Toni Morrison, a bunch of them really.
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Hey Evelyn :). Right – I look forward to Thick, Lot and the new ToMo as well. As well as Folarin’s debut, Obioma’s 2nd book and Bassey Ikpi’s collection etc. They all look so good. Peoples’ book-buying bans will definitely be broken this year haha
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Okay i Just discovered your blog and my money just grew wings….THIS IS AWESOME. i was planning on reading a small fraction of Nigerian books this year but this list , My God this list makes me want to buy everything..a couple of them are already on my TBR list tho..i’m adding more there goes my book buying ban.
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Thanks for stopping by, bookedunicorn! Forget the book buying ban – BUY ALL THE BOOKS! Haha, life is short 🙂
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This is such a great post. Thank you! I have been looking for a collection of African American writers who write more than Urban fiction. You hit the nail on the head with this one. I will most certainly be reading these and maybe conducting my own book reviews.
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Hi LetaWritesFire, thanks for stopping by! I look forward to your reviews of some of these. I’ll be reviewing a few myself.
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This is such a great post. Thank you! I have been searching for more African American novels to read this year and look at God! I can’t wait to read and hopefully write some book reviews.
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This post is amazing!! Thank you for dedicating your time to writing it. I added a ton of these books to me TBR 🙂
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Thanks so much for stopping by, Chelsea :). I’m glad you’re adding a bunch of books to your TBR thanks to this list!
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HAPPY NEW YEAR, DARKOWAA❣️All I can is: “you are so wrong and yet, so right!” with this post. It’s a bit mouthwatering, and I’m still trying to address my backlist and re-reads! Some of the authors coming out with new books are authors I have read and admired, before (i.e. Ngũgĩ, Abouela, Makumbi, Whitehead, Dennis-Benn….) so it’s going to be rough. Also, I’ve owned a hardcover copy of Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen since it came out that I have yet to read. Same with Kalisha Buckhanon’s Solemn. I want to study the Reconstruction era this year so I may have to peek at Henry Louis Gates’s offering. I love Ayana Mathis’s essays, but I still have not read The Twelve Tribes of Hattie….oh lord….!
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Happy New Year, Leslie! Ohhh, please get to ‘The Fishermen’ soon – I absolutely loved it. It tore my heart to shreds. ‘Twelve Tribes of Hattie’ was very very enjoyable too. I’m yet to read Ayana Mathis’s essays online. Studying the Reconstruction era sounds cool. I could only do that in a classroom setting, as the readings tend to be a little dense (for me hahaa) :(. I hope you’re able to read and re-read and purchase the books your heart desires this year! Thanks for always stopping by ❤
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