Leila Mottley bounces into the hotel waiting room to meet me. I waste no time with my questions on Nightcrawling, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022, making this twenty-year-old the youngest author ever to have been nominated.
Coming-of-age
“She wrote exactly how it was to live, love, and be in endz”: A conversation with Lemara Lindsay-Prince
“For so many of us Black Brits, the anonymous writer of Keisha The Sket—Jade LB—is as fundamental to the canon as Shakespeare or Dickens.”
Finding Freedom in Fallibility with Raven Leilani
Everyone expects us to fail, and to succeed is to be the exception. The space between renders us unremarkable.
“I really wanted to write the book that I wish I’d had at 15”: A conversation with Danielle Jawando
Danielle Jawando on mental health, the need for Northern representation, and the impact of covid on And the Stars Were Burning Brightly.
“I wanted to write about how black societies could evolve without white hegemony”: A conversation with Okezie Nwọka
Okezie Nwọka on what and who inspired God of Mercy, the difficulties of duality, and adapting Igbo language and culture for the foreign page.
“I grew up obsessed with this alternate version of myself”: A conversation with Safia Elhillo
Safia Elhillo on the inspiration behind Home is Not a Country, her roots, and writing a world that reflects the one she grew up in.
Home is Not a Country: A novel-in-verse about identity, belonging, and the true meaning of home
Home is Not a Country is told through the eyes of Nima, a Muslim American girl who finds herself longing to be someone else.
“I’m writing the stories I need to write”: A conversation with Dean Atta
Dean Atta is bright and bubbly, talking effusively about his writing and bouncing between topics with that palpable joy that is so characteristic of his work.
Tami Charles’ Muted explores the music industry’s dark side
A fast-paced coming-of-age story about music, the loss of innocence, and the dangers lurking in the shadows of the entertainment industry.
15 Coming-of-Age Novels in English Translation
From Brazil and Haiti to Rwanda and Madagascar, travel the world via this list of coming-of-age novels in English translation.
Black Moses is a damning portrait of Congo-Brazzaville
Longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, this is a cynical coming-of-age story that zeroes in on corruption in 70s and 80s Congo-Brazzaville.
This debut is a breathtaking love letter to diaspora
Bad Love has a somewhat misleading title. Though it is about how we hurt and are hurt in love, it is ultimately about the resilience of love across space and time.
The perfect blend of the personal and the political
Black Boy Out of Time is an eloquent and enlightening testament to the ways in which Black authors recraft genre categories that are not truly interested in telling our stories.
“Black queerness gives us space to imagine”: A conversation with Hari Ziyad
The bestselling author of the debut memoir titled Black Boy Out of Time talks at length about the limitations of writing, community care, the role of theory, and the global publishing industrial complex.
Parsing Freedom: A Review of Kaitlyn Greenidge’s Libertie
Set in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, this is a book for the sisters who are tired of being strong, for the sisters who have no interest in conditional humanity.
Open Water: An ethereal meditation on Black love and art
People like to say that love sees no colour, that love is blind. True as that may be, it is also true that love is about seeing.