BOOKS
The Black Issue 2024 Black Authors’ Preview
naturopath, as she grapples with loss. An immersive story of one woman’s journey with grief, sexuality, mental health, and the power of choice.
Editor’s Choice
Jason Reynolds Twenty-Four Seconds From Now: A Regular Love Story Faber, 08/10/24, PB (£8.99), 97805713906870
From Carnegie Prize-winning US author Reynolds comes a time-jumping novel about having sex for the first time. This tender, sweet, wholesome piece of fiction discusses how to approach first sex, how to respect women, how to be gentle, how to make it about love, showing a refreshingly different side to male sexuality.
Regina Porter The Rich People Have Gone Away Vintage, 8th Aug, £18.99, hb, 9781787335288 An engrossing novel about ordinary New Yorkers brought together in a story of betrayal, race, what connects us to each other—and what sets us apart.
Christine Pride and Jo Piazza You Were Always Mine HQ, 18th July, £9.99, pb, 9780008336028 A poignant story about a Black woman who finds an abandoned white baby. This sends her on a collision course with her past, her family, and a birth mother who doesn’t want to be found.
Dialogue, 1st Aug, £22, hb, 9780349705026 A dark comedy about love and ambition, failure and reinvention.
on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South.
Ani Kayode Somtochukwu And Then He Sang a Lullaby Grove Press UK, 6th June, £9.99, pb, 9781804710197
Debut This début novel tells the story of
Mai Sennaar They Dream in Gold Picador, 8th Aug, £16.99, hb, 9781035033706 An electrifying Afrobeat love story about a young Senegalese jazz musician and an aspiring African American producer thrown together by chance, and destined to make music that will change the world.
Cornerstone, 6th Mar, £9.99, pb, 9781524712594 A searing multi- generational novel, set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama, about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival.
Nikki May
This Motherless Land Transworld, 18th July, £16.99, hb, 9780857527806 A vibrant Mansfield Park retelling with a subversive twist, exploring universal themes of identity, class and prejudice.
Iris Mwanza The Lions’ Den Canongate, 6th June, £16.99, hb, 9781838859923
Debut A remarkable début set in
1990s Lusaka, Zambia, in which a young lawyer must fight for the life of a teenage sex worker accused of crimes “against the order of nature”.
Irenosen Okojie Curandera Dialogue, 27th June, £20, hb, 9780349700946 An experimental new
34 26th May 2024
Olumide Popoola Like Water Like Sea Cassava Republic, 28th May, £16.99, hb, 9781913175627 Set in London, the story follows Nia, a pansexual
novel exploring the darker elements of shamanism, desire, betrayal and friendship—across time and dimensions.
Tomi Oyemakinde We Are Hunted First Ink, 29th Aug, £8.99, pb, 9781035003358 A horror-thriller with the corruption-of-the-rich themes of “The White Lotus”.
Caryl Phillips
Another Man in the Street Bloomsbury Publishing, 7th Jan, £16.99, hb, 9781526678638 The evocative story of a young West Indian man’s search for home in 1960s London.
Ishi Robinson Sweetness in the Skin Michael Joseph, 17th April, £8.99, pb, 9781405956789 When 14-year-old Pumkin Patterson is offered the chance of a new life in France, away from her turbulent family in Jamaica, will determina- tion and a talent for baking be enough to earn her escape? A coming-of- age celebration of food, family and finding your voice, Michael Joseph won this title in a seven- publisher auction.
Del Sandeen
This Cursed House Michael Joseph, 24th Oct, £18.99, hb, 9780241714515 A young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth: they’re under a curse. Southern Gothic ghost story set in a haunted mansion.
Danzy Senna Colored Television
Willow Smith and Jess Hendel Black Shield Maiden Cornerstone, 6th Feb, £9.99, pb, 9781529102000 A historical epic about an African warrior in the world of the Vikings.
Rivers Solomon Model Home Cornerstone, 20th Feb, £16.99, hb, 9781529901696 Solomon turns the haunted-house story
Kuba Shand-Baptiste Soon Come Dialogue, 10th Apr, £20, hb, 9780349704975 Centred around a Jamaican restaurant in London, Judith, Mikey and Frankie attempt to estab- lish roots in a country that has been anything but kind to them. A nuanced re-examination of romanticised stories about generations of British-Jamaicans, revealing their struggles both within and beyond the community.
Naima Simone Church Girl Afterglow, 7th Nov, £8.99, pb, 9780263322972 A forced proximity, work- place romance.
two young men in Nigeria who are determined to love each other despite all that stands in their way. The inaugural title from Roxane Gay Books.
Yahrah St John Going Toe to Toe Afterglow, 1st Aug, £8.99, pb, 9780263322903 A sports romance featur- ing an ex-ballerina and a single dad.
Paula Sutton The Body in the Kitchen Garden Renegade, 3rd Apr, £14.99, hb, 9780349703794 The next cosy, quirky and twist-packed instal- ment in Sutton’s cottage murder mystery series.
Chika Unigwe Grace Canongate, 10th Apr, £16.99, hb,
9781837261918 A novel about a young successful woman in Nigeria whose life is threatening to come apart if the secrets of her past are suddenly revealed.
Vanessa Walters The Lagos Wife Cornerstone, 30th Jan, £9.99, pb, 9781804942864 Nicole has the perfect life: a handsome husband, a palatial house in the heart of Lagos and a glamor- ous group of friends. But when she disappears without a trace after a boat trip, the cracks in her so-called perfect life start to show. For fans of My Sister, The Serial Killer and “The White Lotus”.
Charmaine Wilkerson Good Dirt Michael Joseph, 13th Feb, £14.99, hb, 9780241529942 A tale about love and family in which the daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom.
Non-Fiction
Nels Abbey
The Hip-Hop MBA: Lessons in Cut-Throat Capitalism from Rap’s Moguls Canongate, 10th Apr, £10.99, hb, 9781838856403 Abbey takes us on a guided tour of rap indus- trialists such as Jay-Z, Suge Knight and Puff Daddy, demonstrating how hip hop is rewriting the rules of business.
Virgil Abloh and Anja Aronowsky Cronberg Work in Progress: Notes on Creativity, Collaboration and The In-Between Cornerstone, 6th Feb, £22, hb, 9781529907155 A book on the life, times and ideas of the iconic fashion figure Abloh.
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell These Heavy Black Bones Canongate, 6th June, £18.99, hb, 9781805300441 A brave memoir written by the first Black woman to swim for Great Britain that reflects on race, iden- tity, trauma and power with visceral vulnerability.
Adrienne Adhami Decisions That Matter Cornerstone, 20th Feb, £18.99, hb, 9781529925494 From the author and host of the “Power Hour” podcast comes an action- able guide to making better, more intentional everyday decisions to lead us to the life that we want.
Drew Afualo Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve Cornerstone, 1st Aug, £16.99, hb, 9781529921618 A summoning cry to rid our lives of “terrible men”
©Dayo Kosoko
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
