Must-Read Books by Queer Black Authors
From laugh-out-loud memoirs to unforgettable novels, pick up these stories by classic and contemporary queer Black authors that we can’t recommend enough.
For more great reads by Black voices, explore the All Ways Black book guide, then follow @AllWaysBlack on Instagram to join the conversation.-
1
Add to BookshelfQuietly Hostile
by Samantha Irby
Quietly Hostile makes light as Irby takes us on another outrageously funny tour of all the gory details that make up the true portrait of a life behind the screenshotted depression memes. Relatable, poignant, and uproarious, once again, Irby is the tonic we all need to get by.
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2
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Sister Outsider
by Audre Lorde
In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Audre Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.
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3
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Right Where I Left You
by Julian Winters
“Smart, swoony, and pitch-perfect, Right Where I Left You is ideal for every reader who’s just as likely to geek out over a new issue of Superman: Son of Kal-El as they are the quintessential meet-cute.” —Leah Johnson, bestselling author of You Should See Me in a Crown and Rise to the Sun
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$12.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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4
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How to Live Free in a Dangerous World
by Shayla Lawson
In their new book, Shayla Lawson reveals how traveling can itself be a political act, when it can be a dangerous world to be Black, femme, nonbinary, and disabled. With their signature prose, at turns bold, muscular, and luminous, Shayla Lawson travels the world to explore deeper meanings held within love, time, and the self.
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$29.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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5
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The Taking of Jake Livingston
by Ryan Douglass
Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can’t decide what’s worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare, he wishes he could wake up from. High school soon becomes a different kind of survival game — one Jake is not sure he can win.
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6
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Red at the Bone
by Jacqueline Woodson
An unexpected teenage pregnancy pulls together two families from different social classes and explores their histories – reaching back to the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 — and exposes the private hopes, disappointments, and longings that can bind or divide us from each other, from the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming.
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7
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Giovanni’s Room (Deluxe Edition)
by James Baldwin
In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
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8
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Friday I’m in Love
by Camryn Garrett
It’s too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if Mahalia had a coming-out party? A love letter to romantic comedies, sweet sixteen blowouts, Black joy, and queer pride.
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9
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Congratulations, The Best Is Over!
by R. Eric Thomas
The beloved bestselling author of Here for It returns with an all-new collection of heartening, deeply relatable, and laugh-out-loud essays about what happens after happily ever after. With wit, heart, and hope for the future, Congratulations, The Best Is Over! is the not-so-gentle reminder we all need that even when life doesn’t go according to plan, we can still find our way back home.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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10
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Rainbow Milk
by Paul Mendez
An essential and revelatory coming-of-age narrative from a thrilling new voice, Rainbow Milk follows 19-year-old Jesse McCarthy as he grapples with his racial and sexual identities against the backdrop of his Jehovah’s Witness upbringing.
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11
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The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
by Junauda Petrus
Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus’s bold and lyrical debut is the story of two Black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both.
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$10.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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12
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Skye Falling
by Mia McKenzie
A woman who’s used to going solo discovers that there’s one relationship she can’t run away from in this buoyant novel, a probing examination of the complexities of family, queerness, race, and community.
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$22.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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13
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Vagabonds!
by Eloghosa Osunde
In the bustling streets and cloistered homes of Lagos, a cast of vivid characters — some haunted, some defiant — navigate danger, demons, and love in a quest to lead true lives. Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress — and in triumph.
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14
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It’s About Damn Time
by Arlan Hamilton and Rachel L. Nelson
From a black, gay woman who broke into the boys’ club of Silicon Valley comes an empowering guide to finding your voice, working your way into any room you want to be in, and achieving your own dreams.
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15
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Memorial
by Bryan Washington
A funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love.
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16
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The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early 20-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning 20 years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.
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17
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Dear Senthuran
by Akwaeke Emezi
In this extraordinary memoir, Akwaeke Emezi weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success as a writer, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal.
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18
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The Passing Playbook
by Isaac Fitzsimons
Spencer Harris seems to have it all: a decent shot at a starting position on the boy’s soccer team, great friends, and maybe even something more than friendship with one of his teammates. The only problem is, no one at school knows Spencer is trans — he’s passing. Spencer has to decide if he should be true to himself even though it means coming out to everyone — including the guy he’s falling for.
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19
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Mademoiselle Revolution
by Zoe Sivak
A powerful, engrossing story of a biracial heiress who escapes to Paris when the Haitian Revolution burns across her island home. But as she works her way into the inner circle of Robespierre and his mistress, she learns that not even oceans can stop the flames of revolution.
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20
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The Prophets
by Robert Jones, Jr.
A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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21
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The Black Period
by Hafizah Augustus Geter
An acclaimed poet reclaims her origin story as the queer daughter of a Muslim Nigerian immigrant and a Black American visual artist in this groundbreaking memoir, combining lyrical prose, biting criticism, and haunting visuals.
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$22.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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22
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Black Girl, Call Home
by Jasmine Mans
From spoken word poet Jasmine Mans comes an unforgettable poetry collection about race, feminism, and queer identity. Black Girl, Call Home is a love letter to the wandering Black girl and a vital companion to any woman on a journey to find truth, belonging, and healing.
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23
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Black Leopard, Red Wolf
by Marlon James
In the stunning first novel in Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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24
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I’m So (Not) Over You
by Kosoko Jackson
It’s been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting at a café. Hudson has a favor to ask — he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are in town, and Kian reluctantly agrees. When things don’t go exactly as planned, their fake relationship is starting to feel like it might be more than a means to an end, and it’s time for both men to fact-check their feelings.
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