Literature – African American

 

Academy of American Poets: Poets of the Harlem Renaissance

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5657 

A guide to poets of the Harlem Renaissance, with a brief overview and links to more information.

 

African American Literature Book Club

http://www.aalbc.com  

Author profiles, reviews, resources for writers, and features.

 

African American Literature Online

http://www.geocities.com/afam_literature 

Decade by decade, annotated reading lists of autobiographies, essays, novels, and poems of the twentieth century.

 

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century

http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19

From the New York Public Library, fiction, poetry, and memoirs of authors, including Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Frances Harper, and Harriet Jacobs. 

 

Big Daddy's Lil' Shelf of Black Men in Literature

http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/big-daddys-books.html 

An anthology of writing by proud Black men, including Amiri Baraka, Countee Cullen, Dick Gregory, Walter Mosley, Ishmael Reed, and The Last Poets.

 

Black Caucus of the American Library Association

http://www.bcala.org/awards/literary.htm 

Former Newark Public Library Director Dr. Alex Boyd founded these awards for fiction, first novelists, nonfiction, and outstanding contributions to African American literature.  See the list here.

 

Brer Rabbit Stories

http://www.americanfolklore.net/brer-rabbit.html 

"Brer ("Brother") Rabbit is a trickster character in folktales of African, African-American, and Native American Culture. Brer Rabbit is the consummate trickster, who typically matches wits with Brer Fox, whom he always bests." Several stories are presented here.

 

Classic African American Literature

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/sites/aframdocs.html 

Essential texts by such artists and thinkers as Maya Angelou, Frederick Douglas, Rita Dove, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

 

Coretta Scott King Award

www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/emiert/cskbookawards/recipients.cfm

Best books honoring "African American authors and illustrators for...contributions to children's and young adult literature that promote understanding and appreciation of the culture and contribution of all people to the realization of the American Dream."

 

Electronic Text Center:  African American

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/African-American.html 

A library of texts by notable people like Maya Angelou, Charles W. Chesnutt, W.E.B. DuBois, Nat Turner, and Phillis Wheatley is accompanied by documents by and about ordinary people who struggled against injustices.

 

Mama's Black Bookcase of African American Women in Literature

http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/mamas-bookcase.html   

Selections by sixteen eminent contemporary authors, including Rita Dove, Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, and Ntozake Shange.

 

Mosaic Books

http://www.mosaicbooks.com 

Description of current African American and Latino fiction and nonfiction.

 

Synopsis of Selected Literary Works

http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/bhm/literature/index.htm 

Outlines and discussions cover thirty-five creations, including Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Alice Childress’s A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich, W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, and Angela Davis’s Women, Culture, and Politics.

 

Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color: African American

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/

American Biographies and literary analysis accompany bibliographies and other relevant information about each of over fifty authors; a project by students and scholars at the University of Minnesota.

 

Women of Color, Women of Words

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~cybers/writers.html 

Dedicated to African American women who have gifted, shaken up, and disturbed the theatre world with their powerful words,” this site examines the contributions of a score of contemporary female dramatists, including Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Ntozake Shange, Pearl Cleage, Anna Deavere Smith, and Shay Youngblood.

 

Writing Black

http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/as/Literature/amlit-black.html 

Biographies, bibliographies, and texts and analysis by significant authors ranging from Maya Angelou to Richard Wright. 

 

Go back to the African American Web guide main page. 

 

Go back to list of all Newark Public Library Web guides.