Welcome back to the Hill, my fellow reading enthusiasts!
While African American history should be taught and celebrated throughout the year, this month – Black History Month – is also a way for everyone to celebrate and appreciate African American art, novels, music, and culture as a whole.
As a reader and writer, I want to take this month to appreciate three books written by African American authors. I have chosen three novels that you should dive into this month that explain different aspects of the African American experience.
Warning: The novels discussed may contain sensitive content for some readers.
“Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi
This novel follows the generational lines of Effia and Esi, two sisters who have never met but were born of the same mother in Ghana.
Esi is held captive to be sent into slavery in the same castle that her sister, Effia, lives in with her husband, the British governor in charge of Cape Coast Castle.
This book is a beautiful depiction of African and African American culture. Readers experience the pain, suffering and healing throughout the multiple generational perspectives.
I found this novel to be refreshing, heartbreaking, and irresistible. Once I began reading, it was hard to stop.
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
Themes of beauty standards, racism, domestic violence and poverty are woven throughout the story following Pecola, a young African American girl, who is growing up after the great depression.
Pecola begins to believe that if she has blue eyes then her life would be better and she would be loved and not hated for her dark skin. At its core, this novel is about the phases of womanhood and how women’s lives during this period were shaped by the men around them.
“The Trees” by Percival Everett
“Revolutionary” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of The Trees. Everett fictionalized the act of lynchings through a murder mystery novel to highlight the importance of the act in African American history.
In small-town Money, Mississippi, a dead African-American man’s body is found at a murder scene that resembles a lynching. However, when the police take the body to the mortuary it disappears. Another murder occurs, and when the police get there it is the same dead body that disappeared before. They attempt to take the body in again, and it disappears again. This is the main mystery of the story.
As the story progresses, there are “WTF” moments, goosebump moments, and moments of community. In this novel, Everett takes a stand against racism, police violence and white supremacy.
Commentary Writer Tazha Mattingly can be reached at shatazha.campbell962@topper.wku.edu.
