African American authors book series in reading order

Maya Angelou

51 books• 3 series

Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014), born Marguerite Annie Johnson, was an American memoirist, poet, essayist and civil rights activist. Angelou published seven autobiographies, three books of essays and several books of poetry. The first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), covers Angelou's life up to age 17. Other catalogued titles include Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981) and All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986). The catalogue counts 51 books, including And Still I Rise (1978), and ends with Strategies of Abundance (2014). Angelou received more than 50 honorary degrees.

Alice Walker

50 books• 1 series

Alice Walker is an American novelist, poet, short story writer and social activist. Walker's 50 catalogued books run from The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) to Sweet People Are Everywhere (2021). The Color Purple (1982) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Walker the first African-American woman to take that award, and it heads a Color Purple sequence. Poetry such as Revolutionary Petunias (1973) and essays such as In Search of Our Mother's Garden (1983) sit beside the novels. African American women authors, biography and poetry recur as subject headings. No new title has appeared since 2021.

Zora Neale Hurston

50 books• 1 series

Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 to January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist and documentary filmmaker. Hurston depicted racial struggle in the early 20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is the most popular of the four novels. Hurston also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, the autobiography, ethnographies and essays. Catalogued titles include Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Mules and Men (1935), Tell My Horse and Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), among 50 books.

Isaac Asimov

553 books• 31 series

Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer who also taught biochemistry at Boston University. Hard science fiction is the core of Asimov's reputation, and the Foundation series about a fallen space empire is the most famous work; Asimov ranked with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke as one of the "Big Three" of the genre. The output also covers mysteries, fantasy and popular science, with non-fiction lines such as How Did We Find Out and the Library of the Universe. Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books. This catalogue opens with the story Marooned Off Vesta (1939) and names Asimov on 400 of the listed books.

Brenda Streater Jackson, born February 2, 1953, is an American author of contemporary multicultural romance. Jackson was the first African-American author published in the Silhouette Desire line, and in October 2013 became the first African American to publish a 100th novel. The site lists 154 books from Tonight And Forever (1995) to Beneath The Dawn (2026). Madaris Family & Friends, Westmoreland Legacy, Forged of Steele, Catalina Cove and Grangers are among the series. Subjects include African American women, ranchers and romantic suspense.

James Baldwin

40 books• 4 series

James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 - December 1, 1987), born James Arthur Jones, was an American writer and civil rights activist whose essays, novels, plays and poems drew wide acclaim. Time magazine ranked Go Tell It on the Mountain among the top 100 English-language novels. The essay collection Notes of a Native Son (1955) established Baldwin as a voice for human equality, and a 1965 debate with William Buckley became a landmark on race in the United States. Catalogued works include Giovanni's Room (1956), Another Country (1962) and The Fire Next Time (1963), with race relations and African American life as recurring subjects.

John Edgar Wideman

28 books• 1 series

John Edgar Wideman is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist and essayist, and the first writer to take the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. The Homewood books take their name from the Pittsburgh neighbourhood where Wideman was raised, and Hiding Place (1981), Sent for You Yesterday (1981) and Damballah (1984) belong to them; Brothers and Keepers (1984) and Philadelphia Fire (1990) follow. In 1963 Wideman became the second African American to win a Rhodes Scholarship, and he has taught literature and creative writing at public and Ivy League universities. The catalogue holds 28 titles through Languages of Home (2025).

Samuel R. Delany

61 books• 4 series

Samuel R. Delany, born April 1, 1942, is an African American writer and literary critic whose output covers science fiction, memoir, criticism and essays on literature, sexuality and society. Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection won the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967. Delany holds four Nebula Awards and two Hugo Awards and entered the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002. The catalogue counts 62 books from The Jewels of Aptor (1962), including Nova (1968) and the Return to Nevèrÿon series, with The Edge of Language set for 2027.

Rita Dove

15 books

Rita Dove, born 28 August 1952, is an American poet and essayist. In 1987 Dove became the second African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Dove served as poet laureate consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995, the first African American in that post, and as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Dove has taught at the University of Virginia since 1989. The catalogue holds 15 books from The Yellow House on the Corner (1980) to Playlist for the Apocalypse (2021), including Thomas and Beulah (1986).

Toni Morrison

46 books• 11 series

Toni Morrison, born Chloe Ardelia Wofford (1931-2019), was an American novelist and editor and the 1993 Nobel laureate in Literature. The Bluest Eye (1970) was Morrison's first novel. Song of Solomon (1977) won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Beloved (1987) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Sula (1973) and Recitatif (1983) are further works. Morrison grew up in Lorain, Ohio, and earned a B.A. in English at Howard University in 1953. The catalogue lists 46 books, including non-fiction, plays and short fiction, with Language as Liberation dated 2026.

Randall Kenan (12 March 1963 to 28 August 2020) was an American author. The novel A Visitation of Spirits (1989), the story collection Let The Dead Bury Their Dead And Other Stories (1992) and The Fire This Time (2008) are the works Kenan is best known for, and the story collection was named a New York Times Notable Book in 1992. Kenan received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award and the John Dos Passos Prize. Nine books are catalogued, including James Baldwin (1993), A Time Not Here: The Mississippi Delta (1997), If I Had Two Wings (2020) and Black Folk Could Fly (2022). Catalogue subjects record African American authors, gay men, race relations and social conditions.

Claudia Rankine

8 books

Claudia Rankine, born in 1963, is a Jamaican-American poet, essayist and playwright who has also edited anthologies. Eight catalogued books run from Nothing in Nature Is Private (1994) to Triage (2026), by way of Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004), Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), The White Card: A Play (2018) and Just Us (2020). Race relations, African American authors, American poetry and United States politics of 2001 to 2009 recur in the subjects. Rankine is still publishing.

Walter Mosley

71 books• 6 series

Easy Rawlins, a Black private investigator in Los Angeles, is the figure Walter Mosley returns to most. Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) opens the catalogue, which holds 71 books and reaches Ghalen (2026). Leonid McGill heads a second detective sequence, and Fearless Jones, Socrates Fortlow, King Oliver and the Crosstown to Oblivion science fiction books make up further lines. Los Angeles and New York are the recurring settings.

Mahogany L. Browne

14 books• 1 series

Mahogany L. Browne, born Lesley Tims, is an American poet, curator, writer, organizer and educator, and in July 2021 became the first poet-in-residence at New York City's Lincoln Center. The catalogue lists 14 books from Unlikely & Other Sorts (2006) to A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe (2025). Other titles include Redbone (2015), Black Girl Magic (2018), Woke Baby (2018) and Chlorine Sky (2021). Poetry, children's fiction, social media and African American children are among the subjects.

Ralph Ellison

12 books• 1 series

Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American writer, scholar and literary critic who died on April 16, 1994. Ellison's novel Invisible Man (1952) received the National Book Award in 1953 and is the work Ellison is best known for. Shadow and Act (1964) gathers essays on political, social and critical subjects, and Going to the Territory followed in 1986. Juneteenth (1999) was published posthumously, assembled from the extensive notes left at Ellison's death. The catalogue spans 1938 to 2019, from A Party Down at the Square to The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison.

Camille T. Dungy, born 1972, is an American poet and professor. Eight catalogued books span 2006 to 2026, from What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (2006) through to America, A Love Story (2026). Subjects record American poetry, nature, African American women authors, and history and criticism. Black Nature (2009), Suck on the Marrow (2010), Smith Blue (2011), Guidebook to Relative Strangers (2017), Trophic Cascade (2018) and Soil (2023) fill the run, and Dungy continues to publish.