A LOT of you liked my list of postcolonial theory books last week, so I thought I would continue with other recommended reads. I am a bibliophile and have read thousands of books in my life so far, so I have many thoughts on many books.

I can pump out booklists for days!

But for now, here is a booklist about black identity. All of these books have had a profound effect on how I understand myself as a black person in America.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois

Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Native Son by Richard Wright

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Soul on Ice by Elderidge Cleaver

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

Unbought and Unbossed by Shirley Chisholm

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth

The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Goodwin Woodson

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader by Ida B Wells

Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Letters from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Black Power: Three Books from Exile: Black Power; The Color Curtain; and White Man, Listen! by Richard Wright

Black Jacobins by CLR James

17 October 2018

The Best Books: Post-Colonial Theory

Talia Whyte Books post colonialism

Maryse Condé recently won the Alternative to the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Guadeloupean writer is best known for her work dealing with race and gender in the Caribbean.
When I was in college, I minored in postcolonial studies, which looks at the political and cultural history of formerly colonized people. My family is from Jamaica, and I always struggled with understanding the relationship between this Caribbean island and its “mother” country, England. I learned in school that many formerly colonized country have the same issues with identity.

A colleague asked me to list the best books for learning more about the topic. I think it is safe to say that any book by Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney or Edward Said is a good start, but there are many other great authors that you should look at as well. Most of these books below I read in college. Please note: most of these books focus on the African Diaspora. Of course, this isn’t the definitive list; just some books that came to mind.

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

A Dying Colonialism by Frantz Fanon

From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean 1492-1969 by Eric Williams

Black Jacobins by CLR James

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

Orientalism by Edward Said

Facing Mt Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta

Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire

Colonialism/Postcolonialism by Ania Loomba

The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of Gayati Chakravorty Spivak

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney

The Politics of Change by Michael Manley

The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon

The Black Album by Hanif Kureshi

Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe

The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta

God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureshi

The Longest War: Northern Ireland and the IRA by Kevin Kelley

The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism: The Political Economy of Human Rights: Volume I by Noam Chomsky

10 October 2018

Reread Book Club: The New Jim Crow

Talia Whyte Books mass incarceration

Book: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Author: Michelle Alexander
Times Read: 2

I reread this book for a group discussion I participated in recently. Although the book was written eight years ago, the topic of mass incarceration is more relevant than ever before. This conversation has evolved as more undocumented immigrants and those caught up in the opioid crisis are being imprisoned.

There is also this issue with nearly half a million people incarcerated because they can’t afford their bail, and, of course, there are also people in prison who are wrongly convicted. John Bunn was incarcerated for 17 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Since he was released earlier this year, he has committed himself to create more libraries in prisons.