Rite of Passage

Author	William Wells Brown
ISBN	0142437727

First published in December 1853, Clotel was written amid then unconfirmed rumors that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with one of his slaves. The story begins with the auction of his mistress, here called Currer, and their two daughters, Clotel and Althesa. The Virginian who buys Clotel falls...

Author	Annie Proulx
ISBN	0743271327

Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, "Brokeback Mountain" is her masterpiece. Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender...

Author	Jacqueline Woodson
ISBN	0525535276

Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson's taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child.

As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of...

Author	Nella Larsen
ISBN	0141181273

Born to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for herself. As a young woman, Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South, but even here she feels different. Moving to Harlem and eventually to Denmark, she attempts to carve out a comfortable...

Author	Langston Hughes
ISBN	0374521336

Langston Hughes's stories about Jesse B. Semple--first composed for a weekly column in the Chicago Defender and then collected in Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple Stakes a Claim--have been read and loved by hundreds of thousands of readers. In The Best of Simple, the author picked...

Author	Dorothy West
ISBN	0385471440

An Oprah Winfrey Presents Mini-Series on ABC Network Television Starring Halle Berry

In her last novel, Dorothy West, an iconic member of the Harlem Renaissance, offers an intimate glimpse into African American middle class.  Set on bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, The Wedding tells...

Author	Dinaw Mengestu
ISBN	1594489408

A haunting and powerful first novel that views the streets of Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa through the eyes of Sepha who, seventeen years ago, fled Ethiopia during the Revolution, and now runs a failing convenience store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington. Published as The...

Author	Sam Greenlee
ISBN	1930097271

The Spook Who Sat by the Door tells the story of Dan Freeman, an intelligent and 'naturally athletic' man from the ghetto who becomes the first black CIA agent, then resigns and returns home to Chicago to work with what would now be called 'at risk' youth. To his white bosses and funders, he appears to be...