Black Veeky Forums

Honestly, black (actual African) literature is pretty terrible for the western reader. Almost all of it is Marxist drivel and we, as western readers, are way too disconnected with the subject matter for it to really resonate. A lot of the African lit is experimental and not in the good way. It's just so bad that it makes you cringe. If you absolutely have to read it though, try "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achabe.
Coetzee is fucking white. He's just South African. "Waiting for the Barbarians" is a pretty good read though.

why do u keep spelling Delany's name with an e?

also delany's output is negligible, and much of it is trash. he's fucking pro-pedophilia too, the egregious bastard.

This was a great read, imo

Colson Whitehead might be of interest

Check out Percival Everett's Half an Inch of Water. It's an incredible collection regardless of his color. None of it is overtly about blackness, but it shows up on occasion.

>also Plato's output is negligible, and much of it is trash. he's fucking pro-pedophilia too, the egregious bastard.

I always post Claude McKay and Nathaniel Mackey in these threads.

John Edgar Wideman is good as a memoir-type writer, if you're not sick of memoirs yet. He does labor over race quite a bit which may also bore u.

I didn't know black people used Veeky Forums

Can I ask why you want to deliberately read people of your own skin colour and not just read the best writers?

"Great" is a bit far, I liked it too though

>Implying Bob Dylan is not on par with the greatest of poets

Gtfo pleb

>ctrl+f "baldwin"

Shameful display.

Fuck man, why would we make it known. We're just going to be called nigger and trolled by edgelords.

Picking up a tinge of a aggressiveness in this post. It also makes more than one baseless tacit assumption, but whatever I'll just answer the question.

I've said before that I'm actually not very well read on black authors. And that I'm not super interested in a lot of the things they focus on. But it is undeniable that any people with a common connection, be it racial, nationalistic, religious, etc. share a certain connection or experience to some extent.

Blacks are my people, man, why wouldn't I want to hear what my people have to say?

>black
>literature

Thomas Sowell

I havent read him but I hear good things.
>inb4 uncle tom

Not OP but
>Keep in mind that I am familiar with the big ones so you don't need to be like, "Ralph Ellison durr!"

I haven't read her stuff, but Zadie Smith is big and famous.

Have you read John Edgar Wideman? Fathers and Sons and Philadelphia Fire are both good.

Absolutely based

That big lipped retard who works for the Atlantic. Named after a pharaoh or some shit

WEWUZ Costes

Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa is supposed to be a very good poetry collection about the Vietnam war. I have not read it but it was my coworker's all time favorite poetry collection besides Cummings and she was pretty well read for poetry.

The way she described it made it seem like race was present but the horrors of war were always at the front. She said it was also incredibly depressing. I know it isn't the most contemporary but it is a slim book so maybe it is worth a go.

Why do you need black literature if you don't want to read SJWs and "struggle"? Just read whatever, most literature is universal.

ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

I highly recommend it. There are a couple stories that lampoon slightly, maybe not to the extent for which you're looking, but which show both the humanity and the flaws of the characters

That is the epitome of MFA writing. Do with that what you will, OP.

Cardinal Sarah.
The only black author who doesn't write about how black his experience is.

>hey, guys can you recommend some black authors

>OMG W-WHY?? REEEEEE

Jesus.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a rambling, whinging fuckstain.

I fucking hate niggers. Just read and stop focusing on skin color (the most trivial fucking characteristic of the complex system that is a human)

fcking nigger

if you weren't marginalizing him in your very post he might not feel a need to seek out people that he shares only a superficial commonality with.

why does skin colour matter? fucking racist.

Iceberg Slim - Pimp

Back to /mu/, faggot, this isn't your board.

You're retarded.
Anyone who isn't producing my chinese cartoons is subhuman trash yourself included.

im marginalizing him on his lack of intellectualism. i don't give a fuck if he's black but to be a nigger is no excuse

found the pleb

Start with the classics. Alexandre Dumas.

...

Machado de Assis is very good and quite underrated. His race - whilst it is present in his works, his short story "father against mother" for example - doesn't become the driving interest or concern behind his works which most people in this thread seem to want to avoid.

Also St Augustine, although he apparently doesn't count as black i still think everyone should read him.

>pairing pop and jazz

Nathaniel Mackey - Traces of Perfume quartet.

>Mackey
Came to post this. He occasionally goes full retard on race and the continental humanities touch, but still worth a look.

pic related looks pretty interesting

evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/anthropology-friday-still-a-pygmy-by-isaac-bacirongo-and-micheal-nest/

evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/anthropology-friday-still-a-pygmy-pt-2/

evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/anthropology-friday-still-a-pygmy-pt-3-bantus-mobutu-and-witchcraft/

If you don't like Gucci then you don't "get" post-postmodernism

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Not obnoxiously MUH RACISM nor MUH SEXISM, but actually about desires and quests all people can relate to.

I am not saying there is no sexism and racism discussed in the novel, far from it. It's just not a feminist temper tantrum, but actually insightful. She was an anthropologist after all.

I'd compare it to The Mill on the Floss when it comes to some of the themes.

Try Behead All Satans. The author uses the word "nigger" a lot.

Yusef Komunyakaa

Amazing poet.

Try some contemporary Black Canadian poets and authors. We have some fine ones I've enjoyed: André Alexis, Lawrence Hill, Nega Mezlekia, George Elliott Clarke, Dionne Brand, Shani Mootoo, & Esi Edugyan (haven't read her yet).

A lovely short story collection by one Amina Gautier. The collection features a variety of protagonists from different racial backgrounds--white, black, Indian, you name it.

As far as race is concerned, the issues are along intraracial lines than interracial ones; conflicts like racism--both institutional and casual--may inform the history and feelings of the characters, but they don't override the narrative. How the characters deal with issues that are more informed to their specific circumstances is more central to the story than any particular message regarding social justice. In my opinion, the lack of interracial struggle as a main driving point allows for the black protagonists to be themselves in a way that doesn't put them under that bizarre white vs. black microscope that so many black--and white--writers are so quick to use.

From one black user to another, OP, I can't recommend this collection enough. I just wish I could find more works like this one.

dumas was, tho.

my man.

Kindred by butler is a great book. and I agree that coates' prose is excellent. Check out "the beautiful struggle" about his life growing up in inner-city baltimore.

The Fourth Century - Édouard Glissant

Lol Plato is trash you stupid fag

Is he all hype or is he actually good? I find it maybe not suspicion but slightly depressing that this book is getting all of the hype and the Oprah endorsement when there are a dozen promising sounding books by black women that have been coming out to some attention, but way less.
People seem to really like The Sellout from last year, I thought it was pretty good, but I don't really like straight up comedic writing.

owns
Helen Oyeyemi is a genius.

>Why do you want to read a book by a particular author and not just the best books in general?
>Why do you want to read books on a particular subject and not just the best books in general?

Br here. I've learned that Machado was black not that long ago. It's funny how in 8 years learning about him not a single teacher mentioned that to us, and i've studied in like 3 different schools during that period, and they weren't even shitty schools. Makes you think.