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A-Z of Black Writers

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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

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Chinua Achebe 1930 2013

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first work, Things Fall Apart, which was published in 1958, was hugely influential and has been translated into over forty languages. Achebes subsequent novels include No Longer at Ease, published in 1960, Arrow of God, published in 1964, A Man of the People, published in 1966 and Anthills of the Savannah, which was published in 1987 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His work also includes the volumes of poetry Beware, Soul Brother, first published in 1971 and Christmas in Biafra, published in 1973, the short story collection Girls at War, also published in 1973 and the childrens book How the Leopard Got His Claws, published in 1972. The style of Achebes fiction writing drew heavily on the oral tradition of the Igbo people as he wove folk tales into the fabric of his stories, illuminating community values in both the content and form of his storytelling.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie b. 1977

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist. Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus which was published in 2003, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book and her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun which was published in 2006 won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her third book is a collection of short stories published in 2009 called The Thing Around Your Neck which was shortlisted for the 2009 John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial Prize and the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Adichie credits Chinua Achebe, Igbo author of Nigerian masterwork Things Fall Apart, with her literary success. She once lived in Achebes house and believes his halo surrounded her. After reading his book at 10 years old, she realized that people who looked like her could exist in books. Her desire to write was sparked by his work. In 2010 Adichie was selected as one of The New Yorkers 20 Under 40 writers.

The Black contribution to writing has been active since writing began. Here is a brief alphabet to begin your exploration

Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

Ama Ata Aidoo b. 1942

Professor Ama Ata Aidoo is a Ghanaian author, playwright and academic. Aidoos works of fiction particularly deal with the tension between Western and African world views. She won early recognition with a problem play, The Dilemma of a Ghost in 1965, followed by a collection of short stories No Sweetness Here published in 1970 in which she exercised the oral element of storytelling, writing tales that are meant to be read aloud. In 1977, she published her novel, Our Sister Killjoy; or, Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint, which remains one of her most popular works. In 1986 Aidoo published Someone Talking to Sometime, a collection of poetry and followed this with a collection of childrens stories The Eagle and the Chickens in 1986, Birds and Other Poems in 1987 and the novel Changes: A Love Story in 1991, which went on to win the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book.

Julia Alvarez b. 1950

Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. The theme of being caught between two cultures can be found throughout Alvarezs work. She explored this in her first novel, How the Garca Girls Lost Their Accents which was published in 1991. Her reading audience continued to grow with her second novel, In the Time of Butterflies, published in 1994. Several more acclaimed works of fiction followed such as Yo!, which was published in 1997 and selected as a notable book by the American Library Association in 1998, Before We Were Free, which was published in 2002 and won the Belpre Medal (a recognition presented to a Latino or Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children or youth) in 2004, and Return to Sender which was published in 2009 and won the Belpre Medal in 2010.

Maya Angelou b. 1928

Maya Angelou is an American poet and prize winning memoirist whos best selling memoir about her childhood and young adult years I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her an international literary star. Angelou has written several autobiographies since, including All Gods Children Need Traveling Shoes and A Song Flung Up to Heaven, but the most popular of which has consistently been I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In 1971, her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water Fore I Die was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993, she wrote a poem for President Clintons inauguration and in 2008, she earned a NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Award.

Reinaldo Arenas 1943 1990

Reinaldo Arenas was a Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright who after being persecuted for his homosexuality by the Castro regime that he had once championed, grew critical of and then rebelled against the Cuban government. Despite his short life, Arenas produced a significant body of work. In addition to significant poetic efforts (El Central, Leprosorio), his Pentagonia (The Five Agonies) is the collective title of a set of five novels written from the mid1960s through the late 1980s, that comprise a secret history of post-revolutionary Cuba. It includes Singing from the Well (in Spanish also titled Celestino before Dawn), Farewell to the Sea (whose literal translation is The Sea Once More), Palace of the White Skunks, Color of Summer, and The Assault. When his autobiography, Before Night Falls was published posthumously in 1992, it was on the New York Times 1993 list of the ten best books of the year.

Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

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Ayi Kwei Armah b. 1939
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

Ayi Kwei Armah is a Ghanaian novelist whose work deals with corruption and materialism in contemporary Africa. His first and best known novel, The Beautyful Ones Are not Yet Born published in 1968, describes the life of an unnamed rail worker who is pressured by his family and fellow workers to accept bribes and involve himself in corrupt activities in order to provide his family with material goods. The book is filled with images of birth, decay and death, most notably in the form of a man child who goes through the entire life cycle in seven years. This man child is a metaphor for post-independence Ghana. His second, more autobiographical, novel Fragments, published in 1971, follows the same theme as his first; as in it, the main character having returned from the United States is expected to return to his family bearing the monetary gifts which as in his first novel, is achieved with graft and corruption, which impoverishes the countrys infrastructure. Later works, such as Two

Thousand Seasons, published in 1973 and The Healers which was published in 1978, have a more obviously African focus, and have been characterized by some Western critics as inferior to his early novels. However, they received a better reception from African critics.

James Baldwin 1924 1987

James Baldwin was an American novelist and playwright who wrote about racial and sexual issues in the mid-20th century, especially pertaining to Black life in America. While not a marching activist, Baldwin emerged as one of the leading voices in the civil rights movement for his compelling work on race, notably Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time. Baldwin was open about his homosexuality and atheist beliefs and in his novel, Giovannis Room, told the story of an American living in Paris breaking new ground for its complex depiction of homosexuality. He also explored interracial relationships in his novels, another controversial topic for the times.

Imamu Amiri Baraka b. 1934

Born LeRoi Jones, Imamu Amiri Baraka is an American Scholar, Critic, Academic Author, Author, Playwright and Poet. He attended Rutgers and then Howard Universities and became a sergeant in the United States Air Force. After his writings led to a dishonourable discharge, he became involved in the Black Nationalist poetry and literature scenes and took the name Amiri Baraka after the assassination of Malcolm X. He has taught at several American universities and served as professor emeritus of Africana Studies at The State University of New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook University).

Mariama B 1929 1981

Mariama B was a Senegalese author and feminist, who wrote in French. Her frustration with the fate of African women, as well as her ultimate acceptance of it, is expressed in her first novel, So Long a Letter, published in 1979. In it she depicts the sorrow and resignation of a woman who must share the mourning for her late husband with his second, younger wife. This short book was awarded the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 1980. B died a year later after a protracted illness, before her second novel, Scarlet Song, which describes the hardships a woman faces when her husband abandons her for a younger woman he knew at youth, was published that same year.

Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

Gwendolyn Bennett 1902 - 1981

A vital figure in the Harlem Renaissance (a cultural movement centred in Harlem, New York that spanned the 1920s), Gwendolyn Bennett is known for the sensuality and visual imagery in her writing, which included short stories and poems. Most of her famous work, including her most famous poem, To a Dark Girl, dates back to the 1920s.

including novels and short story collections, and also television scripts and a stage play. Her work has won more than fifteen awards and her television scripts include episodes of the long running, childrens drama Byker Grove, as well as television adaptations of her novels Whizziwig, published in 1995 and Pig Heart Boy which was published in 1997. Her books have been translated into over fifteen languages including Spanish, Welsh, German, Japanese, Chinese and French. Her critically and popularly acclaimed Noughts & Crosses series, published 2001 2008, uses the setting of a fictional dystopia to explore racism. Speaking about the Noughts & Crosses series, Blackman is quoted as saying I wanted to show Black children just getting on with their lives, having adventures, and solving their dilemmas, like the characters in all the books I read as a child. Noughts & Crosses was No. 61 on the Big Read list, a 2003 BBC survey to find The Nations BestLoved Book, with more votes than A Tale of Two Cities, several Terry Pratchett novels, and Lord of the Flies.

W. E. B. DuBois 1868 1963

William Edward Burghardt DuBois was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. Du Boiss most lasting contribution is his writing. As poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, sociologist, historian, and journalist, he wrote 21 books, edited 15 more, and published over 100 essays and articles including the novels, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, published in 1911, Dark Princess: A Romance, published in 1928, a book of essays and poetry, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil, published in 1920 and two histories of Black people, The Negro, published in 1915 and The Gift of Black Folk: Negroes in the Making of America which was published in 1924.

Malorie Blackman b. 1962

Malorie Blackman, OBE, is a distinguished British writer and holds the position of Childrens Laureate for 201315. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults and has used science fiction to explore social and ethical issues. Her first book Not So Stupid, was published in November 1990 and is a collection of horror and science fiction stories for young adults and since then she has written more than fifty childrens books,

His most significant historical work, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, published in 1935, details the role of Black Americans in American society, specifically during the Reconstruction period and remains the best single source on its subject. Black Folk, Then and Now, published in 1939 is an elaboration of the history of Black people in Africa and the New World. Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace, published in 1945 is a brief call for the granting of independence to Africans, and The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History, first published in 1947 is a major work anticipating many later scholarly conclusions regarding the significance and complexity of African history and culture. A trilogy of novels, collectively entitled The Black Flame, published in 1957, 1959 and 1961, and a selection of his writings, An ABC of Color which was published in 1963 are also noteworthy.

Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

Edward Kamau Brathwaite b. 1930

Born in Barbados, Caribbean poet and scholar Edward Kamau Brathwaite was educated at Harrison College in Barbados and Pembroke College in Cambridge. He earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Sussex. Co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement, Brathwaite is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Black + Blues, published in 1976, Middle Passages, published in 1992, Ancestors, published in 2001, the Griffin International Poetry Prize (Canadas most generous annual poetry award which goes to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language) winner Slow Horses, published in 2005, and Elegguas published in 2010. He is also the author of Our Ancestral Heritage: A bibliography of the Roots of Culture in the English Speaking Caribbean, published in 1976 and Barbados Poetry: A Checklist: Slavery to the Present which was published in 1979.

Constance Briscoe b. 1957

Constance Briscoe LL.B, M.A, LL.D. is a writer, barrister and one of Englands earliest Black female Recorders. Her best known works are her books Ugly which was published in 2006, spent twenty weeks on The Sunday Times hardback bestseller list and sold nearly a million copies and its sequel Beyond Ugly, which was published in 2008. Her most recent book The Accused was published in 2011.

William Wells Brown 1814 1884

William Wells Brown was an escaped slave and the first Black American to publish a novel. He published his popular autobiography Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave in 1847. His only novel, Clotel, tells the story of the daughters and granddaughters of President Thomas Jefferson and his slave Currer. Browns historical writings include The Black Man, The Negro in the American Rebellion, and The Rising Son.

Octavia E. Butler 1947 2006

Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best known among the few Black American women in the field. Her first novel, Patternmaster, led the five volume Patternist series, published between 1976 and 1984. She then went on to write several other novels, including Kindred, published in 1979 and Parable of the Sower, published in 1993 and Parable of the Talents, published in 1998 of the Parable series. Parable of the Talents went on to win a Nebula Award (given to recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the U.S.) for best novel in 1999. In 1995, Octavia became the first Science Fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant (an award given each year to typically 20 to 40 American citizens or residents, of any age and working in any field, who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work).

Gwendolyn Brooks 1917 2000

Gwendolyn Brooks was a post war poet best known as the first Black American to win a Pulitzer Prize, for her book Annie Allen. She began writing and publishing as a teenager, eventually achieving national fame for her collection A Street in Bronzeville.

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Aim Csaire 1913 2008

Poet, author and politician Aim Csaire was born in Martinique in the French Caribbean. He left for Paris at the age of 18 with a scholarship for University and during his time at the Lycee Louis-le Grand, he helped found a student publication, Etudiant Noir. In 1936, Csaire started working on his famed piece Cahier, which was not published until 1939. During the 1940s, Csaire was busy writing and publishing many collections of his work. He seemed to be influenced by art because he wrote a tribute to a painter named Wilfredo Lam and one of his collections has illustrations by Pablo Picasso. In 1968 he published the first version of Une Tempete, an adaptation of Shakespeares play The Tempest. He continued writing poetry and plays and all of his writings are in French with a limited number having English translations.

Colin Channer b. 1963

Colin Channer is a Jamaican writer, often referred to as Bob Marley with a pen, due to the spiritual, sensual and social themes presented from a literary Jamaican perspective. Indeed, his first two full-length novels, Waiting in Vain published in 1998 and Satisfy My Soul, published in 2002 bear the titles of well known Marley songs. Among other works he has also written the short story collection Passing Through, published in 2004 and the novellas Im Still Waiting, published in 2005 and The Girl with the Golden Shoes, published in 2007.

Charles Chesnutt 1858 1932

Charles Chesnutt was a trailblazing short story author and novelist who offered up a rich collection of short stories and novels on Black American life. A biracial man, his novel The House Behind the Cedars looked at skin colour while The Colonels Dream focused on a Southern town. Other works include The Conjure Woman and a biography on Frederick Douglass (an

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Austin Clarke b.1934

American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman, who after escaping from slavery became a leader of the Abolitionist movement).

Countee Cullen 1903 1946

Countee Cullen was an American poet associated with the Harlem Renaissance movement. His best known works are Copper Sun, The Black Christ and The Ballad of the Brown Girl.

Austin Clarke is a Barbadian novelist and short-story writer who has lived for most of his life in Canada. His interest in writing began early in life, and in the 1960s his short stories began to be published in Canadian and other periodicals. Clarkes stories and novels primarily centre around the plight of the immigrant West Indian in Canada, although his first two novels, The Survivors of the Crossing, published in 1964 and Amongst Thistles and Thorns, published in 1965 take place in Barbados. His 2002 novel, The Polished Hoe, won the Commonwealth Prize.

Edwidge Danticat b. 1969

Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian American writer who published her first novel at 25 and continues to expose her countrys traumatic history also using non fiction and film. She won the American Book Award in 1999 for The Farming of Bones and the National Book Critics Circle Award (a set of annual American literary awards) in 2007 for Brother, Im Dying.

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Junot Daz b. 1968 Rita Dove b. 1952
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Hackney Libraries A-Z of Black Writers

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 1906

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an American writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who wrote verse and short stories, many of which were written in Black dialect despite the fact that he felt the marketability of dialect poetry was demeaning. He was one of the first Black writers to attempt to make a living from his writing, and one of the first to gain national prominence in the US.

Buchi Emecheta b. 1944

Nigerian writer Buchi Emechetas fiction has focused on sexual politics and racial prejudice, and is based on her own experiences as both a single parent and a Black woman living in Britain. Her first novel, the semi autobiographical In the Ditch, published in 1972 together with its sequel, Second Class Citizen published in 1974, provides a fictionalised portrait of a poor young Nigerian woman struggling to bring up her children in London. In The Bride Price published in 1976, The Slave Girl published in 1977 and The Joys of Motherhood, published in 1979, she began to write about the role of women in Nigerian society. Her other novels include Destination Biafra, published in 1982, The Rape of Shavi, published in 1983 and Kehinde, which was published in 1994. Her latest adult work of fiction, The New Tribe, was published in 1999. Emecheta is also the author of several novels for children, including Nowhere to Play and The Moonlight

Junot Daz is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor and fiction editor. He published his first short story collection Drown, in 1996; his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007 and his second short story collection This Is How You Lose Her in 2012.

Bride both published in 1980. She published a volume of autobiography, Head Above Water, in 1986 and her television play, A Kind of Marriage, was first screened by the BBC in 1976.

Olaudah Equiano 1745 1797

Activist and Journalist Olaudah Equiano was born in approximately 1745 in what is now Nigeria. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in 1789, recounts him being kidnapped from Africa as a child and sold into slavery and is considered the first influential slave narrative. After Equiano bought his freedom he became part of the Abolition movement. He died on March 3, 1797, in London and his daughter Joanna Vassa is buried in Abney Park Cemetery, Hackney.

American poet Rita Dove is the youngest person and the first Black American to be appointed Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress. She has won numerous awards for her work, including a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Ralph Ellison 1914 1994

Ralph Ellison studied music before moving to New York City and working as a writer. His acclaimed first novel Invisible Man was published in 1952 and was seen as a seminal work on marginalization from a Black American protagonists perspective. Ellisons unfinished novel Juneteenth was published posthumously in 1999.

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Nuruddin Farah b. 1945

Nuruddin Farah is a prominent Somali novelist. He was awarded the 1998 Neustadt International Prize for Literature (regarded by some as the most prestigious international literary prize after the Nobel Prize in Literature). After releasing an early short story in his native Somali language, Farah shifted to writing in English. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, published in 1970, told the story of a nomad girl who flees from an arranged marriage to a much older man. The novel earned him mild but international acclaim. On a tour of Europe following the publication of A Naked Needle in 1976, Farah was warned that the Somali government planned to arrest him over its contents, so rather than return and face imprisonment, Farah began a selfimposed exile that would last for twenty two years. Farah describes his purpose for writing as an attempt to keep my country alive by writing about it. His trilogies of novels Variations on the Theme of an

African Dictatorship, published 1980 1983 and Blood in the Sun, published 1986 1999, form the core of his work. Although Variations was well received in a number of countries, Farahs reputation was cemented by his most famous novel, Maps, published in 1986 as the first part of his Blood in the Sun trilogy. He followed the novel with Gifts in 1993 and Secrets in 1998, both of which earned awards. His most recent trilogy comprises of Links, published in 2004, Knots, published in 2007 and Crossbones published in 2011.

Jessie Fauset 1882 1961

A poet and novelist, Jessie Fausets published works include Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree. Fauset studied at the Sorbonne and later worked as literary editor for The Crisis magazine, the official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. The Crisis published the work of Harlem Renaissance greats like Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer.

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Aminatta Forna b. 1964
Aminatta Forna is a Scottish born British writer and the author of a memoir, The Devil that Danced on the Water, published in 2003 and three novels, Ancestor Stones, published in 2006, The Memory of Love, published in 2010 and The Hired Man, published in 2013. The Devil that Danced on the Water received wide critical acclaim across the UK and the US and was broadcast on BBC Radio before going on to become runner up for the UKs Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. Her first novel Ancestor Stones, was named by The Washington Post as one of the most important books of 2006 and 2007, she was named by Vanity Fair magazine as one of Africas best new writers. The Memory of Love, was winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize Best Book Award in 2011 and was described by the judges as a bold, deeply moving and accomplished novel as well as being shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2012 (an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC), and the Warwick Prize for Writing (an international cross disciplinary prize, that is given biennially for an excellent and substantial piece of writing in the English language, in any genre or form, on a theme that changes with every award).

Ernest J. Gaines b. 1933

Novelist Ernest J. Gainess wrote The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, a fictional personal history spanning the period from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. In addition to The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, his novels include Catherine Carmier, Of Love and Dust, In My Fathers House, and A Gathering of Old Men and A Lesson Before Dying.

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Marcus Garvey 1887 1940 Mike Gayle b. 1970 Nikki Giovanni b. 1943
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIAACL). In 1928 after going on a lecture tour of Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada, on his return to Jamaica, Garvey established a new daily newspaper, The Blackman. In July, 1932, Garvey began publishing an evening newspaper, The New Jamaican but the venture was unsuccessful, so he followed this with a monthly magazine, Black Man. This project was also unsuccessful and in March, 1935, he moved to England where he published The Tragedy of White Injustice. Mike Gayle is the bestselling British author of six novels about the male psyche, including My Legendary Girlfriend, published in 1998, Mr Commitment, published in 1999, Turning Thirty, published in 2000, Dinner for Two, published in 2002, His n Hers, published in 2004, Brand New Friend, published in 2005, Wish You Were Here, published in 2007 and The Life and Soul of the Party, published in 2008 as well as a non fiction book The To Do List which was published in 2009. He was a features editor and later an agony aunt for Just Seventeen and Bliss magazines before he had his first novel published. His most recent novel, The Stag and Hen Weekend was released in 2012.

Helon Habila b. 1967

Nigerian Poet and prose fiction writer Helon Habila studied Literature and lectured for three years before going to Lagos to write for Hints Magazine. Extracts from his collection of short stories, Prison Stories, were published in Nigeria in 2000. The full text was published as a novel in the UK under the title Waiting for an Angel in 2002 and received a Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2003. His second novel, Measuring Time, the tale of twin brothers living in a Nigerian village, was published in 2007, and his latest novel, Oil On Water was published in 2010 and shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize and the 2012 Orion Book Award.

The poems of Nikki Giovanni helped to define the Black American voice of the 1960s, 70s and beyond. She was also a major force in Americas Black Arts movement, establishing Cincinnatis first Black Arts Festival in 1967. She published her first book of poems, Black Feeling, Black Talk in 1968.

Lorna Goodison b. 1947

Poet Lorna Goodison was born in Kingston, Jamaica. Her first full collection of poetry, Tamarind Season, was published in 1980, and since then she has continued to create poems and books that critics hail and in all, has published eight collections of poetry including I Am Becoming My Mother in 1986, Heartease, in 1988, To Us, All Flowers Are Roses in 1995 and two collections of short prose stories, Baby Mother and the King of Swords: Short Stories in 1990 and Fool-fool Rose is Leaving Labour-in-Vain Savannah in 2005.

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Alex Haley 1921 1992

American Journalist and Author Alex Haley was an American writer whose works including Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, centred on the struggles of Black Americans. Today, Haley is credited with inspiring a nationwide interest in genealogy and contributed to the easing of racial tensions in America. Time magazine called The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the 10 most important non fiction books of the 20th century.

Robert Hayden 1913 1980

Robert Hayden was an American poet who is best known as the author of poems, including Those Winter Sundays and The Middle Passage.

Nalo Hopkinson b 1960

Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican Canadian, science fiction and fantasy writer and editor and the author of novels Brown Girl in the Ring which was published in 1998, Midnight Robber, published in 2000, The Salt Roads, published in 2003, The New Moons Arms, published in 2007 and short fiction collection Skin Folk which was published in 2001. Her novels and short stories often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Her current novel, Sister Mine, was published in 2013.

Lorraine Hansberry 1930 1965

Playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun a play about a struggling Black family, which opened on Broadway to great success. Hansberry was also the first Black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics Circle award.

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Langston Hughes 1902 1967
Langston Hughes was an American poet, novelist, and playwright whose Black American themes made him a primary contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Hughes first poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers was published in 1921 and his first book of poetry The Weary Blues was published in 1926. His first novel, Not Without Laughter was published in 1929 and he went on to write countless works of poetry, prose and plays.

Cyril Lionel Robert James (C.L.R. James) 1901 1989

Cultural historian, cricket writer, and political activist C.L.R. James was born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. In 1932 he published The Life of Captain Cipriani, which was later revised as The Case for West-Indian SelfGovernment in 1933. His most notable work was the 1938 published The Black Jacobins, a Marxist study of the Haitian slave revolution of the 1790s, which won him widespread acclaim. In 1953 his analysis of Herman Melvilles Moby Dick called Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways was published.

Zora Neale Hurston 1891 1960

Zora Neale Hurston spent her early adulthood collecting folklore from the Caribbean and the South and Latin America, publishing her collection of findings in Mules and Men in 1935. Hurston was a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance, rubbing shoulders with many of its famous writers and in 1937; she published her masterwork of fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In Beyond a Boundary published in 1963, James discussed the importance of cricket to the British character and to the development of the West Indies. His other books include the novel Minty Alley, published in 1936, World Revolution, published in 1937, Notes on Dialectics, published in 1971, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, published in 1977 and Cricket a collection of articles spanning the period 1935 to 1985 which was published in 1986.

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Catherine Johnson b. 1962

Catherine Johnson is a British author and screenwriter. She has written several Young Adult novels and co wrote the screenplay for the 2004 drama film Bullet Boy. Her first book, The Last Welsh Summer, was published in 1993 and she has since written and published fourteen novels including Landlocked, published in 1999 and honoured as an International Youth Library White Raven book, Stella, published in 2002, The Dying Game, published in 2007, A Nest of Vipers, published in 2008 and Arctic Hero which was also published in 2008. Catherine undertakes work in schools, was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London Institute, Writer in Residence at Holloway Prison and Reader in Residence at the Royal Festival Halls Imagine Childrens Literature Festival.

Linton Kwesi Johnson b. 1952

Linton Kwesi Johnson is a Jamaican born UK based dub poet. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only Black poet, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. His performance poetry involves the recitation of his own verse in Jamaican Patois over dub reggae, usually written in collaboration with renowned British reggae producer/artist Dennis Bovell. Most of Johnsons poetry is political, dealing mainly with the experiences of being an African Caribbean in Britain, his most celebrated poems being written during the government of Margaret Thatcher. Johnsons poems first appeared in the journal Race Today, which published his first collection of poetry, Voices of the Living and the Dead, in 1974. His second collection, Dread Beat An Blood, was published in 1975 by Bogle-LOuverture and a collection of his poems was published as Mi Revalueshanary Fren by Penguin Modern Classics in 2002 making him one of

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only three poets to be published by Penguin Modern Classics while still alive.

George Lamming b. 1927

Dorothy Koomson b. 1971

Dorothy Koomson is a contemporary British novelist who has also written for a number of womens magazines and newspapers. In 2003 her debut novel, The Cupid Effect, was published, followed by her second novel, The Chocolate Run in 2004. In 2006, she published her third novel, My Best Friends Girl, which was chosen for the Richard and Judys Summer Reads shortlist book. Her fourth and fifth novels, Marshmallows For Breakfast and Goodnight Beautiful were published in 2007 and 2008 respectively and her sixth novel, The Ice Cream Girls was published in 2010. Her seventh novel, The Woman He Loved Before was released in 2011 and her eighth book The Rose Petal Beach was published at the end of 2012.

George Lamming is a novelist, essayist and poet, the most famous writer to emerge from Barbados and one of the Caribbeans most important novelists. Lamming is the author of six novels: In the Castle of My Skin, published in 1953, The Emigrants, published in 1954, Of Age and Innocence, published in 1958, Season of Adventure, published in 1960, Water with Berries, published in 1971 and Natives of My Person, published in 1972. His 1960 collection of essays, The Pleasure of Exile, is a pioneering work that attempts to define the place of the West Indian in the post colonial world, re-interpreting Shakespeares The Tempest and the characters of Prospero and Caliban in terms of personal identity and the history of the Caribbean. In May 2011 the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) awarded Lamming the first Caribbean Hibiscus Award in acknowledgement of his lifetimes work and in April 2012, he was chair of judges for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (a literary award for books by Caribbean writers).

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Andrea Levy b. 1956

Andrea Levy is a British author, to Jamaican parents who sailed to England on the Empire Windrush in 1948. In her first three novels she explored the problems faced by Black British born children of Jamaican emigrants from different perspectives. In her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Every Light in the House Burnin, published in 1994, the story is based around a Jamaican family living in London in the 1960s. Her second novel Never Far from Nowhere, published in 1996, is set during the 1970s and tells the story of two very different sisters living on a London council estate. In her third novel Fruit of the Lemon, published in 1999, Faith Jackson, a young Black woman, visits Jamaica after suffering a nervous breakdown and discovers a previously unknown personal history. Her fourth novel Small Island, published in 2004 examines the experiences of those of her fathers generation who returned to Britain after being in the RAF during the Second World War and in her latest novel, The Long Song which was published

in 2011; Levy goes further back to the origins of that intimacy between Britain and the Caribbean focusing on the last years of slavery and the period immediately after emancipation.

Earl Lovelace b. 1935

Novelist, playwright and short story writer Earl Lovelace was born in Toco, Trinidad and grew up in Tobago. His first novel, While Gods Are Falling, was published in 1965 and won the British Petroleum Independence Literary Award. It was followed by The Schoolmaster in 1968, about the impact of the arrival of a new teacher in a remote community. His third novel, The Dragon Cant Dance published in 1979 and regarded by many critics as his best work, describes the rejuvenating effects of carnival on the inhabitants of a slum on the outskirts of Port of Spain. In The Wine of Astonishment published in 1982, he examines popular religion through the story of a member of the Baptist Church in a rural village and his most recent novel, Salt, was published in 1996 and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) in 1997.

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Nelson Mandela b. 1918

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is a South African Anti Apartheid revolutionary and politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the first Black South African to hold the office, and the first elected in a fully representative, multiracial election. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Partys Apartheid policies after 1948 before being arrested in August 1962. In November 1962 he was sentenced to five years in prison and started serving his sentence at Robben Island Prison in 1963 before being returned to Pretoria, where he was to later stand in the Rivonia Trial. From 1964 to 1982, he was again incarcerated at Robben Island Prison and then later moved to Pollsmoor Prison, during which his reputation as a potent symbol of resistance to the Anti-Apartheid movement grew steadily. Released from prison in 1990, Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was inaugurated as the first democratically elected president of South Africa in

1994. He is the author of many books but his best known are the international bestsellers Long Walk to Freedom, published in 1994 and Conversations with Myself published in 2010.

Dambudzo Marechera 1952 1987

Dambudzo Marechera was a Zimbabwean novelist and poet. His first book, The House of Hunger, published in 1978, is the product of a period of despair following his time at Oxford. Regarded as signalling a new trend of incisive and visionary African writing, the book was awarded the 1979 Guardian fiction prize. His second book, Black Sunlight, published in1980, has been compared with the writing of James Joyce and Henry Miller but it did not achieve the critical success of House of Hunger. A third book, Mindblast; or, The Definitive Buddy, was published in 1984 and comprises of three plays, a prose narrative, a collection of poems, and a park-bench diary. A collection of Marecheras poetry was published posthumously under the title Cemetery of Mind in 1992.

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Claude McKay 1890 1948

Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three novels: Home to Harlem, which when published in 1928 was the most popular novel written by an Black American at that time, Banjo, published in 1929 and Banana Bottom which was published in 1933. McKay also authored a collection of short stories, Gingertown, published in 1932, and two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home published in 1937 and Harlem: Negro Metropolis, published in 1940. His book of poetry, Harlem Shadows which was published in 1922 was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance and his book of collected poems, Selected Poems, was published posthumously in 1953.

Terry McMillan b. 1951

American novelist Terry McMillan published her first short story, The End, in 1976. In 1987, she published her first novel, Mama, followed by Disappearing Acts, in 1989. Her hit novel, Waiting to Exhale, was published in 1992 and in 1996 she published the best selling novel How Stella Got her Groove Back. The two latter books were later made into films.

Pamela Mordecai b. 1942

Pamela Mordecai is a Jamaican teacher, scholar, poet and writer of short fiction. Mordecai has written articles on Caribbean literature, education and publishing, and has collaborated on, or herself written, over thirty books, including textbooks, childrens books, five books of poetry for adults, including From Our Yard: Jamaican Poetry since Independence which was published in 1987, a collection of short fiction, and (with her husband, Martin) a reference work on Jamaica, Culture and Customs of Jamaica, published in 2001.

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Her poems and stories for children are widely collected and have been used in textbooks in the UK, Canada, the US, West Africa and the Caribbean and her short stories have been published in journals and anthologies in the Caribbean, the US and Canada.

Toni Morrison b. 1931

amateur detective from the Watts section of Los Angeles. In all his Easy Rawlins novels, Mosley uses period detail and slang to create authentic settings and characters. While these are a mainstay, Mosley has also tried his hand at other genres, such as playwriting, science fiction and non fiction.

Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue and richly detailed Black characters and among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved resulting in her winning nearly every book prize possible.

V.S. Naipaul b. 1932

Sir V.S. Naipaul is a Trinidadian writer of Indian descent best known for novels A House for Mr. Biswas published in 1961, A Bend in the River published in 1979 and A Way in the World published in 1994. He received the Nobel Prize in 2001 for his novel Half a Life, a story about an Indian immigrant to England and Africa and he has also written several works of non fiction including An Area of Darkness, published in 1965, India: A Wounded Civilization, published in 1977 and Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, published in 1981 as well as travel writing and several essays. He was knighted in 1989.

Walter Mosley b. 1952

American novelist Walter Mosley is a writer of mystery stories noted for their realistic portrayals of segregated inner city life. His first novel was Devil in a Blue Dress, published in 1990, with Easy Rawlins, an unwilling

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Courttia Newland b. 1973
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Ben Okri b. 1959

Ben Okri OBE and FRSL (Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. His first two novels, Flowers and Shadows, published in 1980 and The Landscapes Within, published in 1981, are both set in Nigeria and feature as central characters two young men struggling to make sense of the disintegration and chaos happening in both their family and country. The two collections of stories that followed, Incidents at the Shrine, published in 1986 and Stars of the New Curfew, published in 1988, are set in Lagos and London. In 1991 Okri was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road, also published in 1991. Set in a Nigerian village, this is the first in a trilogy of novels which tell the story of Azaro, a spirit child. Azaros narrative is continued in Songs of Enchantment, published in 1993 and Infinite Riches, published in 1998. His latest novels are In Arcadia, published in 2002 and Starbook, published in 2007 and a collection of poems, An African Elegy, was

Courttia Newland is a British writer of Jamaican and Bajan heritage. In 1997, he published his first novel, The Scholar and further critically acclaimed work followed, including Society Within, published in 1999 and Snakeskin, published in 2002. He is the co-editor of the anthology IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain, published in 2000 and has short stories featured in many other anthologies including England Calling: 24 Stories for the 21st Century, published in 2001 and The Time Out Book of London Short Stories: Vol 2 also published in 2000. His books include a novella, The Dying Wish, published in 2006 and a collection of macabre short stories, Music for the Off-Key also published in 2006. His latest book, The Gospel According to Cane was published in 2013.

published in 1992, and an epic poem, Mental Flight, in 1999. A collection of essays, A Way of Being Free, was published in 1997. His most recent books are A Time for New Dreams published in 2011, a collection of linked essays, and a new collection of poetry, Wild, published in 2012 and he is also the author of a play entitled In Exilus. Okri has made reference to having been stongly influenced by the oral tradition of his people, and particularly his mothers storytelling having been quoted as saying If my mother wanted to make a point, she wouldnt correct me, shed tell me a story.

Caryl Philips b. 1958

Caryl Phillips is a Kittian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. He is the author of six novels, several books of non-fiction and has written for film, theatre, radio and television. Much of his writing - both fiction and nonfiction - has focused on the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its consequences for the African Diaspora. At the age of 22, Phillips visited St. Kitts for

the first time since his family had left the island in 1958 and the journey provided the inspiration for his first novel, The Final Passage, which was published five years later in 1985. After publishing his second book, The State of Independence in 1986, Phillips went on a one month journey around Europe, which resulted in his collection of essays The European Tribe. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Phillips divided his time between England and St. Kitts whilst working on his novels Higher Ground published in 1989 and Cambridge, published in 1991. In 1990, Phillips took up a Visiting Writer position at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He remained at Amherst College for a further eight years, becoming the youngest English tenured Professor in the US when he was promoted to that position in 1995. During this time, he wrote what is perhaps his most well-known novel, Crossing the River, which was published in 1993, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Phillips was made an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2000, and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2011.

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Geoffrey Philp b. 1958
Geoffrey Philp is a Jamaican poet, novelist, and playwright. He is the author of the novel, Benjamin, My Son published in 2003, and six poetry collections: Exodus and Other Poems, published in 1990, Hurricane Center, published in 1998, Florida Bound, published in 1995 Xango Music, published in 2001, Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas, published in 2005 and Dub Wise, published in 2010. He has also written two books of short stories, Uncle Obadiah and the Alien published in 1997 and Whos Your Daddy? and Other Stories published in 2009; a play, Oguns Last Stand in 2005, and two childrens books, Grandpa Sydneys Anancy Stories published in 2007 and Marcus and the Amazons published in 2011. family and community life, and the spiritual and political dimensions of Reggae and the Rastafari movement.

Andrew Salkey 1928 1995

His work has been mainly influenced by Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, V.S. Naipaul, Bob Marley, and Joseph Campbell and contains some elements of magical realism. Many of his short stories focus on the dilemmas facing fatherless children in the Caribbean, the disruptive effects of the Jamaican diaspora on

Andrew Salkey was a novelist, poet, freelance writer and journalist of Jamaican and Haitian origin whose work reflected a commitment to Jamaican culture. He attended the University of London and became part of the London community of emerging West Indian writers. He became a freelance writer and journalist and contributed to the British Broadcasting Company (now the British Broadcasting Corporation) as a radio interviewer, critic, and author of radio plays and features. Salkeys first novel, A Quality of Violence, published in 1959, is set in a remote area of Jamaica about 1900, when a prolonged drought leads Christians to turn toward the older, darker ways of voodoo and obeah. Like many of his other books, it is narrated in a distinctive Jamaican patois that is rich with folk speech rhythms.

After a second novel, Escape to an Autumn Pavement published in 1960, Salkey spent several years writing stories for children. His popular short story collection Anancys Score which was published in 1973, featured the trickster Anancy, an engaging character in traditional Caribbean culture to whom Salkey returned in the story collection Anancy, Traveller which was published in 1992. In addition to his later novels and several volumes of poetry, Salkey also edited anthologies of Jamaican and Caribbean short stories and folktales.

literature after discovering the works of writers such as Claude McKay. He drew on many of his experiences working on the docks for his French language first novel, Le Docker Noir (The Black Docker), which was published in 1956. Though the book focuses particularly on the mistreatment of African immigrants, Sembne also details the oppression of Arab and Spanish workers, making it clear that the issues are as much economic as they are racial. The book began Sembnes literary reputation and provided him with the financial support to continue writing. Sembnes second novel, O Pays, mon beau peuple! (Oh country, my beautiful people!), published in 1957, tells the story of an ambitious black farmer returning to his native Casamance with a new White wife and ideas for modernizing the areas agricultural practices. O Pays, mon beau peuple! was an international success, giving Sembne invitations from around the world, particularly from Communist countries such as China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union,

Ousmane Sembne 1923 2007

Ousmane Sembne was a Senegalese film director, producer and writer. The Los Angeles Times considered him one of the greatest authors of Africa and he has often been referred to as the father of African film. It was after stowing away to France from his native country of Senegal and working on the docks at Marseille, that Sembne discovered his love for

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and while in Moscow, Sembne had the opportunity to study filmmaking for a year at Gorki Studios. His third and most famous novel is Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (Gods Bits of Wood), published in1960 and regarded by most critics as his masterpiece, rivaled only by Xala. The novel fictionalises the real-life story of a railroad strike on the Dakar-Niger line that lasted from 1947 to 1948. Sembne followed Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu with the short fiction collection Voltaque (tribal scars), which was published in 1962. The collection contains short stories, tales, and fables, including La Noire de... which he would later adapt into his first film. In 1964, he released lHarmattan (The Harmattan), an epic novel about a referendum for independence in an African capital. With the 1965 publication of Le mandat, prcd de Vehi-Ciosane (The Money Order and White Genesis), Sembnes his sights on the corrupt African elites that followed the racial and

economic oppression of the colonial government. Sembne continued this theme with the 1973 novel Xala, the story of a rich businessman struck by what he believes to be a curse of impotence and discovering after losing most of his money and reputation that the source of the curse is the beggar who lives outside his offices, whom he wronged in acquiring his fortune. Le Dernier de lempire (The Last of the Empire), published in 1981, is Sembnes last novel and depicts corruption and an eventual military coup in a newly independent African nation. His paired 1987 novellas Niiwam et Taaw (Niiwam and Taaw) continue to explore social and moral collapse in urban Senegal. On the strength of Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu and Xala, Sembne is considered one of the leading figures in African postcolonial literature. However, the lack of English translation of many of his novels has hindered Sembne from achieving the same international popularity enjoyed by Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka.

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Olive Senior b. 1941

Jamaican Heritage, published in 2003.

Poet, novelist and short story writer Olive Senior was born and brought up in Trelawny, Jamaica. She started her career as a journalist with the Daily Gleaner and later entered the world of publishing. Her prize winning collection of stories, Summer Lightning published in 1986, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize followed by Arrival of the Snake-Woman, published in 1989 and 2010 and Discerner of Hearts, published in 1995 and 2002. Her novel, Dancing Lessons was published in Canada in 2011 and an illustrated childrens book, Birthday Suit in 2012. Her poetry books are Shell, published in 2007, Over the roofs of the world, published in 2005, Gardening in the Tropics, published in 1994, 1995 and 2005 and Talking of Trees, published in 1986. Olive Seniors non fiction works on Caribbean culture include the A-Z of Jamaican Heritage, published in 1984, Working Miracles: Womens Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean, published in 1991 and The Encyclopedia of

Zadie Smith b. 1975

Zadie Smith is a British novelist, essayist and short story writer. Her acclaimed first novel, White Teeth, published in 2000, is a vibrant portrait of contemporary multicultural London, told through the story of three ethnically diverse families. The book won a number of awards and prizes, including the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book). It also won two EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards) for Best Book/Novel and Best Female Media Newcomer, and was short listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Authors Club First Novel Award. White Teeth has been translated into over twenty languages and was adapted for Channel 4 television for broadcast in autumn 2002. Her tenure as Writer in Residence at the Institute of Contemporary Arts resulted in the publication of an anthology

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Wole Soyinka b. 1934
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of erotic stories entitled Piece of Flesh which was published in 2001. Smiths second novel, The Autograph Man, published in 2002, won the 2003 Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction and in 2003 she was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 Best of Young British Novelists. Her third novel, On Beauty, was published in 2005, and won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction. She has also written a non-fiction book about writing published in 2006 and entitled Fail Better and Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, published in 2009. Her latest novel, NW, was published in 2012.

centre and he has written two novels, The Interpreters, which was published in 1965 and Season of Anomy which was published in 1973. His autobiographical works are The Man Died: Prison Notes, published in 1972 and the account of his childhood, Ak, which was published in 1981. His poems are collected in Idanre, and Other Poems, published in 1967, Poems from Prison, published in 1969, A Shuttle in the Crypt, published in 1972, Ogun Abibiman published in 1976 and Mandelas Earth and Other Poems which was published in 1988.

as a racial traitor and Thurman never again wrote on Black American subjects.

Amos Tutuola 1920 1997

Amos Tutuola was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folktales. He is best known for the novel The Palm-Wine Drinkard and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads Town, published 1952, which was the first Nigerian book to achieve international fame. In The Palm-Wine Drunkard and his subsequent novels, Tutuola incorporated Yoruba myths and legends into loosely constructed prose epics that improvise on traditional themes found in Yoruba folktales. The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a classic quest tale in which the hero, a lazy boy who likes to spend his days drinking palm wine, gains wisdom, confronts death, and overcomes many perils in the course of his journey. The book has been translated into 11 languages. In 1954, Tutuola followed up his first book with My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which reiterates the quest motif through the experiences of a boy who, in trying to escape from slave traders, finds himself in the Bush of

Ngg Wa Thiongo b. 1938

Ngg wa Thiongo is a Kenyan writer, who began writing in English but started writing solely in the Kikuyu language for political reasons. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to childrens literature. He became East Africas leading novelist with books like Weep Not, Child, published in 1964, The River Between, published in 1965 and A Grain of Wheat, which was published in 1967.

Wallace Henry Thurman 1902 1934

Wallace Henry Thurman was an American literary figure associated with the Harlem Renaissance. After work on literary journals and getting mixed reviews on his own work, in 1932, Wallace Henry Thurman published his best known novel; Infants of the Spring, a satire of what he believed were the overrated creative figures of the Harlem scene. While some reviewers welcomed Thurmans bold insight, others vilified him

Akinwande Oluwole Wole oyinka is a Nigerian writer, notable especially as a playwright and poet. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature becoming the first person in Africa and the diaspora to be honoured in this way. As a dramatist, Soyinka bases his writing on the mythology of his own tribe the Yoruba, with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the

Jean Toomer 1894 1967

American Poet, novelist and short-story writer Jean Toomer was a major figure during the Harlem Renaissance. Toomer started off writing several short stories and poems and in 1921, he started working on his first and best known book, Cane.

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Ghosts. Another quest is found in Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle, published in 1955, which is a more compact tale focusing upon a beautiful and rich young girl who leaves her home and experiences poverty and starvation. In this and the books that followed: The Brave African Huntress in 1958, The Feather Woman of the Jungle in 1962, Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty in 1967 and The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town in 1981, Tutuolas rich vision imposes unity upon a series of relatively random events. His later works include Yoruba Folktales published in 1986, Pauper, Brawler, and Slanderer, published in 1987 and The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories which was published in 1990. Tutuolas vivid presentation of the world of Yoruba mythology and religion and his grasp of literary form made him a success among a wide British, African, and American audience.

Binyavanga Wainaina b. 1971

Binyavanga Wainaina is a Kenyan novelist, short story writer and journalist. Following his education, Wainaina worked in Cape Town for some years as a freelance food and travel writer before winning the Caine Prize for African Writing (an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer published in the English language) for his short story Discovering Home in July 2002. He is the founding editor of Kwani?, the first literary magazine in East Africa since Transition Magazine. Since its founding, Kwani? has since become an important source of new writing from Africa; several writers for the magazine have been nominated for the Caine Prize and have subsequently won it. Wainainas satirical essay How to Write About Africa attracted wide attention. In 2003, he was given an award by the Kenya Publishers Association, in recognition of his services to Kenyan literature. He has written for The EastAfrican,

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Derek Walcott b. 1930

National Geographic, The Sunday Times (South Africa), Granta, the New York Times, Chimurenga magazine and The Guardian (UK) and his debut book, a memoir entitled One Day I Will Write About This Place, was published in 2011. He is currently a Bard Fellow and the Director of the Chinua Achebe Center for African Literature and Languages at Bard College.

Alice Walker b. 1944

Alice Walker is an American novelist and poet most famous for her 1982 novel, The Color Purple, for which she won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her books of poetry include Hard Times Require Furious Dancing, published in 2010, A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems And Drawings, published in 2003 and Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth which was also published in 2003. As well as The Color Purple, her novels and short story collections include Possessing the Secret of Joy: A Novel, which was published in 2008, The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart, published in 2000 and You Cant Keep a Good Woman Down , which was published in 1981.

St Lucia born poet and playwright Derek Walcott began writing poetry at an early age and in 1948 at the age of 18, he made his debut with 25 Poems but his breakthrough came with the collection of poems, In a Green Night in 1962. Walcott is best known for his poetry, but of Walcotts approximate of 30 plays, the best known include Dream on Monkey Mountain produced in 1967 and Pantomime produced in 1978. Many of his plays make use of themes from Black folk culture in the Caribbean.

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Dorothy West 1907 1998

Dorothy West was an American writer remembered for her sharp observations of varied issues within the Black American community. She completed her first novel, The Living Is Easy, in 1948 and published a second novel, The Wedding, in 1995 to much acclaim.

Harriet E. Wilson 1825 1900

Harriet E. Wilson was the first Black American female novelist, and one of the first Black Americans to publish a novel in the United States. In 1859 she wrote the autobiographical novel Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black which addressed racism in the pre Civil War North.

Phillis Wheatley 1753 1784

In the late 18th century, slave poet Phillis Wheatley impressed everyone she met, proving to the world that the colour of a persons skin does not indicate intellect. Born in Senegal in about 1753, Phillis was brought to Boston, Massachusetts, on a slave ship in 1761, and was purchased by John Wheatley as a personal servant to his wife. The Wheatleys educated Phillis and she soon mastered Latin and Greek, and began writing poetry. She published her first poem at age 12, and her first volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773.

Richard Wright 1908 1960

American writer and poet Richard Wright published his first short story at the age of 16. Later, he received critical acclaim for Uncle Toms Children, a collection of four stories but is best known for the 1940 bestseller Native Son and his 1945 autobiography Black Boy.

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Benjamin Zephaniah b. 1958

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is a British writer and dub poet. He was included in The Times list of Britains top 50 post-war writers in 2008. He published his first poetry collection, Pen Rhythm, in 1980. His second collection of poetry, The Dread Affair: Collected Poems was published in 1985 and contained a number of poems attacking the British legal system. Rasta Time in Palestine, published in 1990, is an account of a visit to the Palestinian occupied territories and contained poetry and travelogue. His other poetry collections include two books written for children: Talking Turkeys published in 1994 and Funky Chickens, published in 1996. He has also written novels for teenagers: Face, published in 1999, Refugee Boy, published in 2001, Gangsta Rap, published in 2004 and Teachers Dead, published in 2007. His first

television play, Dread Poets Society, was first screened by the BBC in 1991 and his play Hurricane Dub was one of the winners of the BBC Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1998. His radio play Listen to Your Parents, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000, won the Commission for Racial Equality Race in the Media Radio Drama Award and has been adapted for the stage. Many of the poems in Too Black, Too Strong, published in 2001, were inspired by his attendance at both the inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings and the inquiry into the death of Ricky Reel, an Asian student found dead in the Thames. We Are Britain! published in 2002, is a collection of poems celebrating cultural diversity in Britain and his most recent books, both for children, are an autobiography: Benjamin Zephaniah: My Story and When I Grow Up, both published in 2011.

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