Black writing

Autobiography & biography [BIOG]

Authors | A | B | F | K | M | S | W |

Achebe, Chinua [Nigeria]

Home and exile [920 Achebe BIOG] / [823.914 HIS]
Oxford, 2001 / Canongate, 2003
In a series of literary and humorous reminiscences from his early years, Achebe speaks about his own intellectual formation under European schooling, and his personal search for his identity.

Angelou, Maya [USA]

All God’s children need traveling shoes [920 Angelou BIOG]
Virago, 1997
The fifth volume of Maya Angelou's autobiography the author emigrates to Ghana only to find that you can't go home again. She comes to a new understanding of the myth of mother Africa, slavery and civil rights.

The collected autobiographies of Maya Angelou [973.0496 BIOG]
Virago, 2005
Maya Angelou's celebrated autobiographies, including the bestselling 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', are brought together in one volume. Angelou has chronicled her remarkable journey through life and inspired people of every generation and nationality to embrace life with commitment and passion.

Even the stars look lonesome [920 Angelou BIOG]
Virago, 1998/Virago, 1999
Maya Angelou reflects on the people and places she has known, and her experiences as a dancer, singer, waitress, activist, director, teacher, wife and mother.

The heart of a woman [920 Angelou BIOG]
Virago, 1996
The 4th volume of Maya Angelou's autobiography. Here she is immersed in the world of black writers in the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King.

I know why the caged bird sings [920 Angelou BIOG]
{first pub. 1970} Virago, 1984
Spoken Word
In this, the first volume of her autobiography, writer and poet Maya Angelou reflects on her childhood spent growing up in the American South of the 1930s. There she learned the power of the white townsfolk and suffered the trauma of rape.

Singin’ and swingin’ and getting’ merry like Christmas [920 Angelou BIOG]
Virago, 1985
This is the 3rd volume in the Maya Angelou's autobiography. In this volume, music and her son are the focus of her life. She is on the edge of a new world - marriage, show business and a triumphant tour of "Porgy and Bess".

A song flung up to heaven [920 Angelou BIOG]
Virago, 2002/2003
Spoken Word
The final volume of Maya Angelou's autobiography begins in 1964 when the author returned to the USA during its great period of upheaval and social change. She reports on this tragic period in her own inimitable and insightful way.

Brown, Cupcake [USA]

A piece of cake [979.4985 BIOG]
Bantam, 2006
The story of a girl named Cupcake, beginning when, aged eleven, she is orphaned and placed in the care of sadistic foster parents. But there comes a point in her preteen years when Cupcake's story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark disturbing journey through hell.

Forna, Aminatta [Sierra Leone]

The devil that danced on the water: a daughter's memoir of her father, her family, her country and a continent [920 Forna BIOG]
HarperCollins, 2002/Flamingo, 2003
This is an autobiographical account of a childhood encompassing racial intolerance in 1960s Scotland, the idyll and political upheaval of Sierra Leone as it attempts to embrace democracy, and a family tragedy with national/international repercussions.

Kincaid, Jamaica [Antigua/USA]

My Brother [920 Kincaid BIOG]
Vintage, 1998
This book describes the fascinating life story of the author's brother Devon Drew, who died of AIDS at the age of 33. He was intelligent and had a seductive personality, was involved in a murder at the age of 14 and was a heavy user of drugs.

King, Dexter Scott [USA]

Growing up King: an intimate memoir [323.1196073 Biog] Time Warner, 2004
Dexter Scott King was just seven years old when an assassin took his father Martin Luther King's life. In this memoir he reveals his shattered childhood in the shadow of the 'King legacy', as well as memories of his father.

King, Martin Luther [USA]

Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. [920 King BIOG]
Little Brown, 1999/Abacus 2000
Spoken Word
Compiled from his own words, this autobiography of Martin Luther King shows how the mild-mannered, inquisitive child and student rebelled against segregation and was fired by a vision of equality for people everywhere.

McBride, James [USA]

The colour of water: a black man’s tribute to his white mother
Bloomsbury, 1998
Spoken Word
As an adult, McBride finally persuaded his mother to tell her story - the story of a rabbi's daughter born in Poland & raised in the southern US, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a Baptist church, & put 12 children through college.

Mandela, Nelson [South Africa]

Long walk to freedom [968.064 BIOG]
Little Brown, 1994 / Abacus,1995/2002
'Long Walk To Freedom' recreates the drama of the experiences that helped shape Nelson Mandela's destiny. From his imprisonment on Robben Island to his remarkable journey to freedom and inauguration as President this work describes his frustrations and strength of heart.

Soyinka, Wole [Nigeria]

You must set out at dawn: a memoir [822.914 Lit]
Random House, 2006

Wright, Richard [USA]

Black boy [920 Wright BIOG]
Moved from home to home, from brick tenement to orphanage, Richard Wright had had, by the age of 12, only one year's formal education. Gradually he learned how to survive in a world of white hostility, secretly satisfying his craving for books.