What are your top picks or most eagerly awaited books by non-white authors?
I’m on the lookout for books that dive into different cultures, folklore and traditions. Whether it’s real or imagined, magic, history, or just everyday life – I want to feel like I’m learning and vibing with diverse perspectives.
I’m all in for fiction – especially fantasy, horror, historical fiction, and mystery – but also nonfiction that isn’t too graphic sexually, including r\*pe (for personal reasons).
Thanks! 📚
by veggiebites
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One Hundred Years of Solitute by Marquez and The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole. I read this thriller/mystery a few years ago and still think about it sometimes. I really liked it.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh is a delightful fantasty novel based on Korean folklore. Axie Oh is Korean American.
All of these are excellent horror books: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (Indigenous mythology), Waubgeshig Rice (Indigenous apocalyptic suspense), Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (Indigenous wendigo horror), The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (Jim Crow ghost historical), and Lone Women by Victor LaValle (alternative western).
If you’re okay with middle grade books I recommend BB Alston’s ‘Amari and the Night Brothers.’ Two are out in the series so far and hoping the third comes out soon.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Legendborn and Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
The Poppy War by R F Kuang historical fantasy, takes place in China during the opium war.
* Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (about a girl growing up in 1990s Harlem)
* Flux by Jinwoo Chong (sci-fi about a corporate scandal and time travel)
* Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly (about Maori 20-somethings in New Zealand)
* No One Dies Yet by Kobby Ben Ben (set in Ghana. Not sure how sexually explicit it is, since I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve read some reviews and none of them mentioned sex or rape).
* Prophet by Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché (one white author and one black author) (sci-fi kind of like Annihilation)
* The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez (sci-fi about spaceships and globalization)