Black writing

Modern British writing

Adebayo, Diran [UK]

Some kind of black
Virago, 1996/Abacus, 1997
Saga Prize winner, Ebony Reads Top 25 title

Adebayo, Dotun [UK]

Sperm bandits
X Press, 2002

Westside storeys [SS] (ed)
X Press, 2003

Augustus, Patrick [UK]

Complete Babyfather
X Press, 1999

Don't make me laugh - Quick Reads series [Skills] Turnaround, 2006
Spoken Word

Bandele-Thomas, Biyi [UK]

Burma boy
Jonathan Cape, 2007 / Vintage, 2008
It's winter 1944, and World War Two is entering its most crucial stage. Deep in the Burmese jungle, Private Ali Banana and the soldiers of Thunder Brigade are given orders to go behind enemy lines. But as the losses begin to mount up, 14 year-old Ali's sanity falters and troubling questions arise.

Blackman, Malorie [UK]

Dangerous reality [ZONE]
Corgi, 2000

Dead gorgeous [ZONE]
Doubleday, 2002/Corgi, 2003

Double Cross [ZONE]
Doubleday, 2008

Knife edge [ZONE]
Doubleday, 2003

Noughts and crosses [ZONE]
Doubleday, 2001/Corgi, 2002
Ebony Reads Top 25 title

The stuff of nightmares [ZONE]
Doubleday, 2007 / Corgi, 2008

Campbell, Sheri [UK]

Rude gal
X Press, 1997

Wicked in bed
X Press, 1995

Carr, Rocky [UK]

Brixton bwoy
Fourth Estate, 1998
This is an autobiographical novel about a young Jamaican boy who comes to England and is sucked into a life of crime. Rocky Carr stays in Wayland Prison, where he writes and works every day in the prison kitchen.
 

Bitter fruit
Pen Press, 2004
Bibo is a young, overweight black girl, whose only escape from her unhappy home life is through the pages of romantic novels. She thinks her luck has changed when she meets the charming Raymond and moves in with him, but he soon turns out to be cruel, violent and demanding, with a child he forgot to mention and a taste for Bibo's pretty younger sister.

Daley-Clarke, Donna [UK]

Lazy eye
Scribner, 2005 / Pocket, 2006
'Lazy Eye' is a magical, haunting, irresistible debut about a young black man called Geoffhurst with an unusual way of looking at life and a super hero's name.

 

Evans, Diana [UK]

26a
Chatto & Windus, 2005, Vintage 2006
Orange Award for New Writers winner 2005
Identical twins, Georgia and Bessi Hunter, live in the loft of 26 Waifer Avenue in Neasden. This novel watches the Hunter family as they make their way through the 1980s, some family members having more success than others.

Evaristo, Bernardine [UK]

Blonde roots
Hamish Hamilton, 2008
Written with Bernardine Evaristo's customary wit and zeal, 'Blonde Roots' is at once a free-wheeling comic fantasy, a moving family saga and a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

The Emperor’s babe
H.Hamilton, 2001/Penguin, 2002

Gayle, Mike [UK]

Brand new friend
Hodder & Stoughton, 2005, Hodder 2006
Spoken Word

Dinner for two
Flame, 2002
Spoken Word

His 'n' hers
Flame, 2004 / Hodder & Stoughton, 2005
Spoken Word

The life and soul of the party
Hodder & Stoughton, 2008
Set across a year of leaving dos, birthday parties and anniversary celebrations, 'The life and soul of the party' is a warm, funny and moving tale celebrating love, life and those special moments we've all spent in the kitchen at parties.

My legendary girlfriend
Hodder & Stoughton, 1998/Flame 1999

Mr. Commitment
Hodder & Stoughton, 1999/Flame, 2000
Spoken Word

Turning thirty
Flame, 2000
Spoken Word

Wish you were here
Hodder & Stoughton, 2007
After 10 years together Charlie Mansell has been dumped by his live-in girlfriend, Sarah. All he wants to do is wallow in misery, but mates Andy and Tom have a better idea, a week of sun and souvlaki in Malia, party capital of the Greek Islands. But Charlie and his mates aren't 18 anymore, or even under 30.

Headley, Victor [UK]

Seven seals, seven days [CRI]
Hodder, 2002 / New English 2003

Kay, Jackie [UK]

Straw girl [ZONE]
Macmillan Children's, 2002

Why don’t you stop talking (short stories)
Picador, 2002

Wish I was here: stories
Picador, 2006, 2007
In this collection of stories, Jackie Kay explores every aspect of love - the most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions, exposing the moments of tenderness, shock, bravery and remorse that accompany its pursuit, its passions, its passing.

Koomson, Dorothy [UK]

My best friend's girl
Time Warner, 2006
What would you do for the friend who broke your heart? Best friends Kamryn and Adele thought nothing could come between them, until Adele slept with Kamryn's fiance, Nate. Worse still, she got pregnant and had his child. When Kamryn discovered the truth about their betrayal she vowed never to see any of them again.
Spoken Word

The chocolate run
Amber Salpone thinks in chocolate - talk to her for three minutes and she'll tell you what kind of chocolate you'd be. In fact, most days, if she was asked to choose between chocolate and relationships, there'd be no contest. At least chocolate has never let her down. Unlike her family.
Spoken Word

The cupid effect
Piatkus, 2003/Sphere, 2007
Ceri's given up hope of ever finding anyone who'll put up with her various idiosyncrasies. All her energies seem to have been diverted into solving other people's romantic problems. Is she always destined to play Cupid? Or can she use some of her powers where they're needed most - to help herself?

Goodnight, beautiful
Sphere, 2008
Nova Kumalisi would do anything for her closest friend, Mal Wacken. She owes him her life. So, when he asked her to be the surrogate mother for him and his wife, in spite of her fears about how it would alter their friendship, Nova agreed. Eight years later, Nova is bringing up their son alone, and she and Mal don't speak.

Marshmallows for breakfast
Sphere, 2007
When Kendra Tamale returns to England from Australia she rents a room from Kyle, a divorced father of two, and begins a new job. She's looking forward to a fresh start and a simple life. Then she bumps into the man who shares her awful secret, and things fall apart. The only way to fix things is to confess to the terrible mistake she made.
Spoken Word

Lee, Kolton [UK]

The last card
Maia, 2007
H is a boxer past his prime. Haunted by the memory of a fight that should have made him great, he is chasing his dream through the seedy London boxing circuit. But when a gunfight at an illegal gambling shebeen drags him into an underworld of violence and extortion, H finds himself in debt to the sinister White Alan.

Levy, Andrea [UK]

Every light in the house burnin’
Headline, 1994/1995

Fruit of the lemon
Review, 1999/2000
Spoken Word

Small island
Review, 2004
Orange Prize winner 2004
Returning to England after the war Gilbert Joseph is treated very differently now that he is no longer in an RAF uniform. Joined by his wife Hortense, he rekindles a friendship with Queenie who takes in Jamaican lodgers. Can their dreams of a better life in England overcome the prejudice they face?

Markham, E. A.

At home with Miss Vanessa
Tindal Street Press, 2006

Meet me in Mozambique: [stories]
Tindal Street Press, 2005

Mason-John, Valerie [UK]

Borrowed body
Serpent's Tail, 2005

Killer tune [CRI]
Hodder, 2007

Running Hot
Maia Press, 2004
Elijah 'Schoolboy' Campbell needs to get away from Hackney, out of London's underworld. He wants out of the violence, bling and petty deaths. He's taking a great offer to leave it all behind and start a new life. But even opportunity has a price.

The dying wish - Quick Reads series [Skills]
Abacus, 2006
Spoken Word

Music for the off-key: twelve macabre short stories
Peepal Tree, 2006
A man with a guilty taste for schoolgirls looks for a way to end his shame; a hotel receptionist begins a sexual adventure with shattering consequences; a young man is troubled by a persistant itch behind his shoulder blades. In these and other stories in this collection, there is a delight in the dark, the grotesque and the uncanny.

The scholar: a West Side story
Abacus, 1997
Spoken Word

Snakeskin
Abacus, 2002
Spoken Word

Society within
Abacus, 1999/2000

Newland, Courttia (ed)

Tell tales: short story anthology: Vol. 1 [SS]
Flipped Eye Publishing, 2004

Phillips, Mike [UK]

The name you once gave me - Quick Reads series [Skills]
Abacus, 2006
Spoken Word

Redfern, Paul [UK/Kenya]

Mirror image
Pen Press, 2003

The lonely Londoners
{first pub. 1956} Longman, 1985
Ebony Reads Top 25 title

Smith, Zadie [UK]

The autograph man
Hamish Hamilton, 2002 / Penguin, 2003
Spoken Word

White teeth
Hamish Hamilton, 2000/Penguin 2001
Whitbread First novel award 2000
Commonwealth Best First Book award
Ebony Reads Top 25 title
Spoken Word
White Teeth is a comic epic of multicultural Britain by one of the most exciting young writers of 2000. It tells the story of immigrants in England over a period of 40 years.

On beauty
Hamish Hamilton, 2005, Viking 2006
Booker Prize shortlist 2005
Spoken Word

Sunmonu, Yinka [UK]

Cherish
Mango, 2004
This is the story of Cherish, a black child who is fostered into a white family. After a young life-time with them, does it matter that Cherish is black? Or has her upbringing in effect made her white? Yet Cherish finds when she must return to her parents, that the norms of her white home invariably spark conflict in her black family.

Sutherland, Luke [UK]

Venus as a boy
Bloomsbury, 2004

Wheatle, Alex [UK]

Brixton rock
Black Amber Books, 1999
Brenton Brown is 16 years old. A mixed race youth, Brenton has lived in a children's home all his life. Being reunited with his mother is the best thing that has happened to Brenton. But a strange series of events soon push him to the edge.

The dirty south
Serpent's Tail, 2008
'The Dirty South' is a fast, compelling novel that offers no easy answers

Island songs
Allison & Busby, 2005, 2006

Williams, Nicola [Guyana/UK]

Without prejudice
Headline Feature, 1998

Zephaniah, Benjamin [UK]

Face [Zone]
Bloomsbury, 1999

Refugee boy [ZONE]
Bloomsbury, 2001

Teacher's dead [Zone]
Bloomsbury, 2007
A teacher is dead, murdered by two of his students in front of the school. He was a good man. People liked him. So how could this happen? Why? It just doesn't make sense to Jackson, and he is determined to investigate the case until he understands.