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Thursday, February 21, 2008
Black History Month: Not the usual suspects
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the criticisms of Black History Month is that it sometimes tends to keep teaching about the same people in U.S. history. That’s certainly the case when the discussion turns to literature, as the Official Checklist of Sanctified Black Literature usually name-checks Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston. Maybe a little Nikki Giovanni or Richard Wright if people are feeling expansive.
I have to tip my hat, therefore, to Rhonda Swan, a staff writer for the Palm Beach Post, which is also owned by Cox Enterprises. She knows contemporary African-American popular fiction a lot better than I do, and she came up with an alterna-list of 10 popular modern novels, some of which may be a little further down the “guilty pleasure” spectrum.
Swan’s list can be found here.
She writes about “P.G. County” by Connie Briscoe, for example, a novel about adultery among affluent African-Americans in Maryland, calling it “pure soap opera.” Eric Jerome Dickey makes her list, of course. And Atlanta’s Pearl Cleage is there as well, for her first novel, “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day,” which is more in the tradition of lliteary fiction than commercial fiction.
I wouldn’t want to dissuade anyone from reading “Invisible Man” or “Song of Solomon,” but I’m also happy to acknowledge the pure beach-book pleasures of a Terry McMillan. So go check out Swan’s list, and then sound off: What’s your favorite African-American novel, classic or not, and why?
Thanks to everyone who posted about books. I’m going to turn off commenting cause I don’t want to have to keep monitoring the blog. Best wishes to all.
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