No black woman writer in this culture can write “too much.” Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’…No woman has ever written enough. – bell hooks
Black and African American Lesbian literature focuses on the experiences of Black women’s experiences. The experiences are shaped by homophobia, racism, sexism, and classism, but are more than stories of oppression.
These books include mythical experiences, feminist biographical analysis, love, metamorphosis, motherhood, sex and freedom.
Here are 5 great lesbian/queer books focusing on Black & African American women that we hope will entertain, enlighten, relax, inspire or ground you.
1. Po Man’s Child by Marci Blackman
After sustaining a serious injury during an S/M scene, Po Childs checks herself into a psychiatric hospital where she recalls her life’s most memorable incidents and unconventional relatives. Her father, Gregory Childs, a once aspiring jazz musician, wins his store, the Party Shack, on a poker hand, only to quietly gamble his business away. Her mother, Lillian, regretfully gives up her dreams of college and career to raise Po, sister Onya, and brother Bobby. When Gregory has an affair with his brother’s (white) wife, Jessica, everyone becomes unhinged. Ray, the cuckolded husband, repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempts suicide, and Lillian succumbs first to alcohol, then prescription drugs. Onya has a nervous breakdown, while Bobby escapes first into the arms of his imaginary playmates, then into the abyss of heroin addiction, and finally into the family of the Ministers of Allah.
2. Under The Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is 11 when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child, and they fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls. When their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself. But there is a cost to living inside a lie.
3. Tailor-Made by Yolanda Wallace
Before Grace Henderson began working as a tailor in her father’s bespoke suit shop in Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn, she established a hard and fast rule about not dating clients. The edict is an easy one for her to follow, considering the overwhelming majority of the shop’s clients are men. But when Dakota Lane contacts her to commission a suit to wear to her sister’s wedding, Grace finds herself tempted to throw all the rules out the window.
4. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved–in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
5. How We Get Free: Black Feminism And the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
“If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free.” –Combahee River Collective Statement
The Combahee River Collective, a path-breaking group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the antiracist and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. In this collection of essays and interviews edited by activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to Black feminism and its impact on today’s struggles. The publication of How We Get Free marks the 40th anniversary of the Combahee River Collective statement.
