VPL Picks - Local Black AuthorsLike this list

17 items

• Junie

  Knight, Chelene, 1981-

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  This novel by award-winning writer Chelene Knight is set in 1930s Hogan's Alley, a thriving Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver's East End.

• Races

  the Trials & Triumphs of Canada's Fastest Family

  Jerome, Valerie (Valerie E.)

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  Valerie Jerome's book about her family history pays almost equal attention to racial tension and running races. Valerie Jerome is a local athlete, educator, and activist.

• The Island of Forgetting

  Sealy, Jasmine

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  Vancouver-based Barbadian Canadian Jasmine Sealy’s powerful debut novel spans 60 years and tells the story and secrets of a family from Barbados to Canada.

• Invisible Boy

  a Memoir of Self-discovery

  Mooney, Harrison

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  Author and journalist Harrison Mooney was born to a West African immigrant mother and adopted as an infant by a white family. This is his harrowing memoir about being raised by religious fundamentalists in British Columbia.

• With/holding

  Gibson, Chantal N.

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  Artist, poet, and educator Chantal Gibson interweaves poetry and art to give a voice to black women in Canada, then and now.

• The Outer Harbour

  Stories

  Compton, Wayde, 1972-

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  This epic story collection by prize-winning writer Wayde Compton uses Vancouver’s geography to tell intertwined stories of race, migration, and home.

• Harrowings

  Poems

  Nicholson, Cecily, 1974-

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  Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize-winning Nicholson's latest collection "takes place mainly in the rural and reconnects with a history of Black intellectual and artistic history in relation to agriculture."

• I've Been Meaning to Tell You

  a Letter to My Daughter

  Chariandy, David, 1969-

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  Award-winning novelist David Chariandy writes to his daughter about the politics of race and the perpetuated oppression of institutional racism that this country was built on.

• Washington Black

  a Novel

  Edugyan, Esi

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  Edugyan's Giller Prize- winning novel about an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation. Washington Black's life takes on an unexpected trajectory when he is chosen to work on a project with one of the owners.

• 100 Days

  Okot Bitek, Juliane, 1966-

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  Each poem of this masterful collection deals poignantly with the futility of the Rwandan genocide. Juliane Okot Bitek ’s work has been published widely online, in print, and in literary magazines.

• Burning Sugar

  Poems

  Blain, Cicely Belle, 1993-

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  A powerful poetry collection by the founder of Black Lives Matter Vancouver and one of 150 Black women and non-binary people making change across Canada.

• The Gospel of Breaking

  Christmas, Jillian, 1983-

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  Poet and spoken-word artist Jillian Christmas invites readers into a world of sacred identities. Her poems "blend the personal with the political to yield truth." Quill & Quire

• A Credit to Your Race

  Green, Truman, 1945-

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  Self-published in 1973 and republished in 2011 as part of the City of Vancouver’s 125th anniversary, this is a short, semi-autobiographical novel about the interracial relationship of two teenagers in 1950s Surrey.

• I Am Still Your Negro

  An Homage to James Baldwin

  Mason-John, Valerie

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  Valerie Mason-John's poems highlight issues of the African Diaspora and the Black, female, Queer identity,

• Being Brown

  a Very Public Life

  Brown, Rosemary, 1930-2003

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  The autobiography of Rosemary Brown, politician, feminist, writer, educator and the 1st black woman elected to a Canadian Provincial Legislature (B.C) and running for the leadership of the Federal NDP Party in 1975.

• Eat Salt / Gaze at the Ocean

  Poems

  Désil, Junie

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  This poetry collection by Haitian Canadian poet Désil explores Black sovereignty, Haitian sovereignty, and Black lives.

• What Do I Read Next?

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