African American Biographical Fiction

On the Potomac docks in 1778, a sixteen-year-old enslaved cooper named Moses learns to hold his face still while white men talk numbers over his head — and starts memorizing them. For nineteen years, Moses Banks counts. He counts barrels, wages, days, miles between Virginia and Pennsylvania. He teaches himself to read a ledger before he can safely admit he can read at all. Because in George Washington's household, freedom isn't a single door — it's a six-month residency clock, a rotation schedule, a column in someone else's book. And Moses has found where the numbers don't add up. ...

Grace could get any man she wanted physically, but obtaining love seemed to be impossible for her. Although she appeared to be very strong, independent, and very charming, she was empty on the inside. Grace had a great career and achieved many accomplishments. However, when it came to her love life, she felt like a complete failure. Until she decided to no longer be held captive to sexual abuse in the past.

REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious Mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the million-copy bestseller The...

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR! “A gripping narrative, don't miss this historical fiction about the woman who kicked off the Harlem Renaissance.”—People Magazine “A page turner and history lesson at once, Harlem Rhapsody reminds us that our stories are our generational wealth...

After seven years of prison, multimillionaire drug mogul Kane Garrett is back on the streets. But instead of diving back into the drug game, he’s teaching a college class, infusing business principles with his signature ruthless edge he developed in the streets. When a student - and heavy heroin dealer - named Basil catches Kane’s eye, Kane takes him on as a protégé, and together, they build the biggest, smartest drug trafficking business the state has ever seen.

Published during a literary era marked by the ascendance of Black writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Alex Haley, this thinly fictionalized account of Claude Brown’s childhood as a hardened, streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem has been heralded as the definitive account of everyday life for the first generation of African Americans raised in the Northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s.

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author and is read by acclaimed narrator Bahni Turpin, whose voice listeners will recognize from The Hate U Give, Children of Blood and Bone, and The Underground Railroad. From author Sarah Bird comes the compelling, hidden story of Cathy...

"The Heroic Slave" is the only work of fiction by the eminent abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The narrative was inspired by Madison Washington, a slave on the Creole who led a rebellion on the ship in November 1841, and had it sail to Nassau in the Bahamas instead of New Orleans. The short story appeared in the collection Autographs for Freedom (1852).

Mark Binelli turns his sharp, forceful prose to fiction in an inventive retelling of the outrageous life of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, a bluesman with one hit and a string of inflammatory guises. He came onstage in a coffin, carried by pallbearers, drunk enough to climb into his casket every night. Onstage he wore a cape, clamped a bone to his nose, and carried a staff topped with a human skull.

This is the true story of my Great-Grandfather George Calloway, a slave in Cleveland, Tennessee, before and during the Civil War. It is written as historical fiction, based on George’s life, and stories I heard growing up. It is a tale of determination, perseverance, and achievement. George protected his family through war, famine, and plague; he risked his life repeatedly to protect his owner’s family, and thus his own wife and children. More fact than fiction, George’s story has also been my journey, grappling with the humiliation of slavery.

Inspired by true events, The Woman I Became: Volume One is a raw story about survival, motherhood, heartbreak, and the woman Selah had to become before she could finally choose herself. Selah Monroe thought being chosen meant being loved. From first love and young motherhood to years of betrayal, broken promises, and starting over with almost nothing, Selah slowly discovers how the love she learned to accept when she was young shaped the woman she became.

In May 1862, Robert Smalls, a slave and ship’s pilot in Charleston, South Carolina, crafts a daring plan to steal the steamship Planter and deliver it, along with, the crew and their families to the Union blockade. After risking his life to escape slavery, Robert faces an even more difficult challenge: convincing Abraham Lincoln to enlist black troops.

Combining factual biography with the imaginative structure and investment in the language of the novel, Anthony Joseph fully engages with the world he recreates, and by presenting a multifaceted view from Kitch’s friends, rivals, and even enemies, he gets to the heart of the man behind the music and the myth, reaching behind the sobriquet to present a holistic portrait of the calypso icon Lord Kitchener.

The mother of the revolutionary firebrand Malcolm X was a Grenadian woman born at the turn of the 20th century in a small rural community in a deeply colonial society where access to education had only just begun for the children of working people. She emigrated to Canada and then the USA, where she became involved in the struggle for Black civil rights led by Marcus Garvey.

Crispus Attucks was the major figure in the early struggle for American independence. A sailor who rallied Bostonians to walk into certain death from an assembled firing squad of British Regulars. His ethnic background was half African American and half Native American. He was born into slavery in 1723 and escaped his enslavement to become a dockyard worker, a whaler and a contract farmer.

Über 200 Jahre wurde unter Verschluss gehalten, dass die wichtigste Frau an der Seite des dritten US-Präsidenten Thomas Jefferson seine Sklavin Sally Hemings war. Erst die international bekannte Künstlerin Barbara Chase-Riboud gab ihr mit diesem Roman eine Identität und ihre eigene Geschichte zurück. In ›Sally Hemings‹ zeichnet sie das Bild einer stolzen, eigenwilligen Frau, die statt Freiheit die Liebe wählte und zeitlebens um ihren Platz in Jeffersons Leben kämpfte.

A former inmate, who is now an assistant stock broker and a part-time gang counselor, details his life on the inner city streets of Atlanta as a notorious drug dealer, vividly recreating the his struggle to break the cycle and walk the straight and narrow.

Crystal Jackson presents a gripping novel based on the true-life story of the Black man who officially investigated Marilyn Monroe's case in 1962 and signed her death certificate. At 22 years old, Lionel "Frenchy" Grandison was on top of the world. He had married his high school sweetheart, purchased a new home in Pacoima, and landed a prestigious job at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. Everything in his life was perfect until the famous Hollywood actress died.

This unrelenting, powerful story of a mother’s courage takes listeners on one woman’s journey to overcome childhood trauma, addiction, and despair. Told from the perspective of a young boy named Quinn, the story revolves around his search for answers about the cruel world around him as he wonders if his own fate is sealed as a descendant of devastating trauma that may flow in the bloodlines of his family. The story marks a vivid understanding of what it was like growing up Black in St. Louis affected by the different drug epidemics that spanned more than 50 years.

Maya Angelous gribende erindringsbog om at vokse op som sort pige i 1930'ernes amerikanske sydstater i et stærkt raceopdelt miljø, hvor de sorte udsættes for had og ydmygelser. Om en barndom med skiftende hjem og med forældre uden kræfter til at være forældre. Om at gå gennem uretfærdigheder og overgreb, men alligevel rejse sig og finde styrke til at gøre sig fri af sin sociale arv. Bogen lå på bestsellerlisterne i to år efter udgivelsen i 1969 og er stadig en elsket klassiker over hele verden.