Celebrating Black Canadian AuthorsLike this list

20 items

• The World So Wide

  Jones, Zilla,

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  Felicity Alexander is supposed to be charming audiences at New York's Metropolitan Opera, not under house arrest in Grenada in October 1983 when the Americans invade. Growing up mixed-race in Winnipeg, Felicity endures racial slurs from her peers,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Where We End & Begin

  a Novel

  Igharo, Jane,

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  Dunni hasn't seen her high school boyfriend, Obinna, since she left Nigeria to attend college in America. Before their devastating separation, they vowed to find their way back to each other one day. Twelve years later, and their vow is a thing of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Finding Edward

  a Novel

  Murray, Sheila (Documentary filmmaker)

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  Cyril Rowntree migrates to Toronto from Jamaica in 2012. Managing a precarious balance of work and university he begins to navigate his way through the implications of being racialized in his challenging new land. A chance encounter with a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Junie

  a Novel

  Knight, Chelene, 1981-

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  A riveting exploration of the complexity within mother-daughter relationships and the dynamic vitality of Vancouver's former Hogan's Alley neighbourhood.

• Salvage

  Readings From the Wreck

  Brand, Dionne, 1953-

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  Dionne Brand explores English and American literature, and the colonial aesthetic that shaped her sense of self and the world, of what was possible and what was not.

• River Mumma

  Reid-Benta, Zalika,

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  Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won't stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store. Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• In the Upper Country

  Thomas, Kai,

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  The fates of two unforgettable women--one just beginning a journey of reckoning and self-discovery and the other completing her life's last vital act--intertwine in this sweeping, deeply researched debut set in the Black communities of Ontario that…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Sleeping Car Porter

  Mayr, Suzette,

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  The Sleeping Car Porter brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a gay man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways. Affecting, imaginative, and visceral enough that you'll feel…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Even Though I Knew the End

  Polk, C. L. (Chelsea L.),

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  A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above. An exiled augur…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Son of Elsewhere

  a Memoir in Pieces

  Abdelmahmoud, Elamin,

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  Professional wrestling super fandom, Ontario's endlessly unfurling 401 highway, late nights at the convenience store listening to heavy metal--for writer and podcast host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, these are the building blocks of a life. Son of Elsewhere…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Bedroom Rapper

  Cadence Weapon on Hip-hop, Resistance and Surviving the Music Industry

  Pemberton, Rollie, 1986-

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  Tracing his roots from recording beats in his mom's attic in Edmonton to performing with some of the most recognizable names in rap and electronic music--De La Soul, Public Enemy, Mos Def, Questlove, Diplo, and more--Polaris Prize winner Rollie…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Butter Honey Pig Bread

  Ekwuyasi, Francesca, 1990-

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  An intergenerational saga about three Nigerian women: a novel about food, family, and forgiveness. Spanning three continents, Butter Honey Pig Bread tells the interconnected stories of three Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blood Like Fate

  Sambury, Liselle,

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  While struggling with her new role as Matriarch, Voya has a vision of a terrifying, deadly future, and with a newfound sense of purpose, she vows to do whatever it takes to bring her shattered community together and prevent the destruction of them…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blood Scion

  Falaye, Deborah,

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  Fifteen-year-old Sloane can incinerate an enemy at will--she is a Scion, a descendant of the ancient Orisha gods. Under the Lucis' brutal rule, her identity means her death if her powers are discovered. But when she is forcibly conscripted into the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• No Bootstraps When You're Barefoot

  My Rise From a Jamaican Plantation Shack to the Boardrooms of Bay Street

  Hall, Wes,

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  From one of Canada's most successful business leaders, the founder of the BlackNorth Initiative and the newest and first Black Dragon in the Dragon's Den comes a rags-to-riches story that also carries a profound message of hope and change.

• The Son of the House

  Onyemelukwe-Onuobia, Cheluchi, 1978-

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  The lives of two Nigerian women divided by class and social inequality intersect when they're kidnapped, held captive, and forced to await their fate together.

• We Rip the World Apart

  a Novel

  Carr, Charlene,

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  When 24-year-old Kareela discovers she's pregnant with a child she isn't sure she wants, it amplifies her struggle to understand her place in the world as a woman who is half-Black and half-white, yet feels neither.

• Policing Black Lives

  State Violence in Canada From Slavery to the Present

  Maynard, Robyn,

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  Policing Black Lives is a timely and much-needed exposure of historical and contemporary practices of state-sanctioned violence against Black lives in Canada. This groundbreaking work dispels many prevailing myths that cast Canada as a land of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Out of the Sun

  on Art, Race, and History

  Edugyan, Esi,

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  History is a construction. What happens when we begin to consider stories at the margins, when we grant them centrality? How does that complicate our certainties about who we are, as individuals, as nations, as human beings? Through the lens of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend

  Notes From the Other Side of the Fist Bump

  Philippe, Ben,

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  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend. In this memoir-in-essays, the author chronicles a lifetime of being the Black friend (see also: foreign kid, boyfriend, coworker,…Read moreRead more of this annotation