The Best Southern Books of February 2024 https://ift.tt/VA1SBNo
The world feels pretty dark right now, but at least we can turn to stories for reprieve, education, and inspiration. Check out this roundup of new books by Black authors to read during Black history month.
Redwood Court
By DéLana R. A. Dameron
February 6, 2024
The Dial Press: “With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.”
Beacon Press: “The collection contains twelve provocative tales that explore the emotional and mental terrain of a diverse cast of characters, from the innocent to the insane. In uncompromising prose, and dialect that veers from northern, educated tongues to down-home southern colloquialisms, Jones illuminates lives that society ignores, moving them to center stage.”
Belt Publishing: “From an exhilarating new voice, a breathtaking memoir about gay desire, Blackness, and growing up. Through a mix of straightforward memoir, brilliantly surreal reveries, and moments of startling imagery and insight, Stewart’s explorations of love, illness, chemical dependency, desire, family, joy, shame, loneliness, and beauty coalesce into a wrenching, musical whole.”
Glitter Road
By January Gill O’Neil
February 6, 2024
CavanKerry Press: “The poems in this book look back at the end of a marriage, a heartbreaking loss, and a new relationship against the backdrop of a Mississippi season. O’Neil reflects on the history and legacy of Emmett Till, how his story is intertwined with her own, and wades through the incredible grief she feels for herself, her children, and the Black children who won’t come home tonight.”
Counterpoint: “A dazzling debut collection spanning a century of Black American and Afro-Latino life in Puerto Rico, Pittsburgh, Louisiana, Miami, and beyond — and an evocative meditation on belonging, the meaning of home, and how we secure freedom on our own terms.”
Make Me a World: “An unflinching, honest novel in verse about a teenager’s journey into the slam poetry scene and the dangerous new relationship that could threaten all her dreams. In this gripping coming-of-age novel from the critically acclaimed author Safia Elhillo, a young woman searches to find the balance between honoring her family, her artistry, and her authentic self.”
MCD: “In Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, Brontez Purnell — the bard of the underloved and overlooked — turns his gaze inward. A storyteller with a musical eye for the absurdity of his own existence, he is peerless in his ability to find the levity within the stormiest of crises. Here, in his first collection of genre-defying verse, Purnell reflects on his peripatetic life, whose ups and downs have nothing on the turmoil within.”
Harper: “In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States — a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences.”
Viking: “Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.”
One World: “‘A thoughtful, courageous, exciting invitation… to discover the spirit of resistance embodied by our ancestors and awaken it in ourselves. A splendid work.’ — Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets. A gripping historical novel about a spirited girl who joins a sisterhood working to undermine the Confederates, The American Daughters is a novel of hope and triumph that reminds us what is possible when a community bands together to fight for their freedom.”
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