Black in Literary Theory & Criticism & Fiction & Literature Audiobooks

Audiobook

Notes of a Native Son

by James Baldwin ...

Narrated by Ron Butler ...

Unabridged

5 hours 3 min

At last, a new audio edition of the book many have called James Baldwin's most influential work!Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most ... Read more

$16.99 USD

At last, a new audio edition of the book many have called James Baldwin's most influential work!Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most
... Read more
Audiobook

Read Until You Understand

The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature

by Farah Jasmine Griffin ...

Narrated by Farah Jasmine Griffin ...

Unabridged

7 hours 56 min

A BRILLIANT SCHOLAR IMPARTS THE LESSONS BEQUEATHED BY THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND ITS REMARKABLE ARTISTS AND THINKERS.Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase “read until you understand,” a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life.Griffin ... Read more

$20.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

A BRILLIANT SCHOLAR IMPARTS THE LESSONS BEQUEATHED BY THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND ITS REMARKABLE ARTISTS AND THINKERS.Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase “read until you understand,” a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life.Griffin
... Read more
Audiobook

Southern Horrors

by Ida B. Wells-Barnett ...

Narrated by Janina Edwards, Royal Jaye ...

Unabridged

1 hour 3 min

“If American conscience were only half alive, if the American church and clergy were only half christianized, if American moral sensibility were not hardened by a persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame and indignation would rise to Heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read.” —Frederick Douglass, to Ida B. Wells-BarnettIn 1892, investigative ... Read more

$8.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

“If American conscience were only half alive, if the American church and clergy were only half christianized, if American moral sensibility were not hardened by a persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame and indignation would rise to Heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read.” —Frederick Douglass, to Ida B. Wells-BarnettIn 1892, investigative
... Read more
Audiobook

The Origin of Others

by Toni Morrison ...

Narrated by Robin Miles ...

Unabridged

2 hours 25 min

“The Origin of Others combines Toni Morrison’s accustomed eloquence with meaning for our times as citizens of the world.” —Nell Irvin Painter, New RepublicAvailable for the first time in audio, America’s most revered novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for ... Read more

Was $14.99 USD Now $2.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

“The Origin of Others combines Toni Morrison’s accustomed eloquence with meaning for our times as citizens of the world.” —Nell Irvin Painter, New RepublicAvailable for the first time in audio, America’s most revered novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for
... Read more
Audiobook

Erasing The Black Man: The New Movement of Removing Black Men from Black Women and Television

by Raymond Sturgis ...

Narrated by Books with Voices ...

Unabridged

34 min

Black men understand that no matter how much money, successes or achievement in education they obtain, white America will always see them as a threat and problem. Black men understand they are the superior race, unfortunately, seeds of hopelessness, fear, anger, and incompetence have obstructed the progress of black men. Majority of problems black men have is self-inflicted. They are destroying ... Read more

$4.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

Black men understand that no matter how much money, successes or achievement in education they obtain, white America will always see them as a threat and problem. Black men understand they are the superior race, unfortunately, seeds of hopelessness, fear, anger, and incompetence have obstructed the progress of black men. Majority of problems black men have is self-inflicted. They are destroying
... Read more
Audiobook

The Art of Death

Writing the Final Story

by Edwidge Danticat ...

Narrated by Edwidge Danticat ...

Series series Art of...
Unabridged

4 hours 43 min

A moving reflection on a subject that touches us all, by the bestselling author of Claire of the Sea Light Edwidge Danticat's The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story is at once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work. "Writing has been the primary way I have tried to make sense ... Read more

$15.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

A moving reflection on a subject that touches us all, by the bestselling author of Claire of the Sea Light Edwidge Danticat's The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story is at once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work. "Writing has been the primary way I have tried to make sense
... Read more
Audiobook

We're Alone

Essays

by Edwidge Danticat ...

Narrated by Edwidge Danticat ...

Unabridged

4 hours 35 min

Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat’s childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We’re Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, ... Read more

$15.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat’s childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We’re Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood,
... Read more
Audiobook

Jean Toomer

Writer for a New America

by George Hutchinson ...

Narrated by David Sadzin ...

Unabridged

11 hours 12 min

A critical biography of Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer and his lifelong struggle to transcend race, by an award-winning authorThe poet and novelist Jean Toomer (1894–1967) was among the most influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance, inspiring generations of Black writers with his 1923 modernist masterwork Cane. Yet his mission was to awaken Americans to the formation of a new "American ... Read more

$24.99 USD

A critical biography of Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer and his lifelong struggle to transcend race, by an award-winning authorThe poet and novelist Jean Toomer (1894–1967) was among the most influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance, inspiring generations of Black writers with his 1923 modernist masterwork Cane. Yet his mission was to awaken Americans to the formation of a new "American
... Read more
Audiobook

Afrofuturism

The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture

by Ytasha L. Womack ...

Narrated by Karen Chilton ...

Unabridged

5 hours 55 min

A 2014 Locus Awards finalist, nonfiction category.Wonderfully narrated by Karen Chilton, Afrofuturism is an engaging, hip, and accessible primer to the music, literature, and art of Afrofuturism. Author Ytasha Womack introduces listeners to the burgeoning community of artists creating Afrofuturist works. She writes engagingly about the innovators from the past and the wide range of subjects they ... Read more

$34.99 USD

A 2014 Locus Awards finalist, nonfiction category.Wonderfully narrated by Karen Chilton, Afrofuturism is an engaging, hip, and accessible primer to the music, literature, and art of Afrofuturism. Author Ytasha Womack introduces listeners to the burgeoning community of artists creating Afrofuturist works. She writes engagingly about the innovators from the past and the wide range of subjects they
... Read more
Audiobook

The New Negro, A History

A History in Documents, 1887-1937

Narrated by Deanna Anthony ...

Unabridged

36 hours 37 min

This book brings together a wealth of readings on the metaphor of the "New Negro," charting how generations of thinkers debated its meaning and seized on its potency to stake out an astonishingly broad and sometimes contradictory range of ideological positions. It features dozens of newly unearthed pieces by major figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles S. Johnson, and Drusilla Dunjee Houston as ... Read more

$34.99 USD

This book brings together a wealth of readings on the metaphor of the "New Negro," charting how generations of thinkers debated its meaning and seized on its potency to stake out an astonishingly broad and sometimes contradictory range of ideological positions. It features dozens of newly unearthed pieces by major figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles S. Johnson, and Drusilla Dunjee Houston as
... Read more
Audiobook

The Sisterhood

How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture

by Courtney Thorsson ...

Narrated by Janina Edwards ...

Unabridged

10 hours 10 min

Finalist, 2025 Frances Fuller Victor Award in General Nonfiction, Oregon Book AwardsHonorable Mention, 2024 William Sanders Scarborough Prize, Modern Language AssociationOne Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment. Calling themselves "The Sisterhood," the group would get together ... Read more

$19.99 USD

Finalist, 2025 Frances Fuller Victor Award in General Nonfiction, Oregon Book AwardsHonorable Mention, 2024 William Sanders Scarborough Prize, Modern Language AssociationOne Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment. Calling themselves "The Sisterhood," the group would get together
... Read more
Audiobook

Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, The

by James Weldon Johnson ...

Narrated by David Dear ...

Unabridged

5 hours 42 min

In the years after the Civil War, there was an unfortunate amount of importance placed on racial identity. The focus on the races of one’s parents remained a mainstay of culture due to systemic prejudice and racism, and was a way of continuing to enact violence against Black people. For many mixed-race people, it felt safer to try and shift into white society.It is in this environment that The ... Read more

$9.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

In the years after the Civil War, there was an unfortunate amount of importance placed on racial identity. The focus on the races of one’s parents remained a mainstay of culture due to systemic prejudice and racism, and was a way of continuing to enact violence against Black people. For many mixed-race people, it felt safer to try and shift into white society.It is in this environment that The
... Read more
Audiobook

Language as Liberation

Reflections on the American Canon

by Toni Morrison ...

Narrated by Bahni Turpin ...

Unabridged

8 hours 36 min

Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison investigates Black characters in the American literary canon and the way they shaped the nation’s collective unconscious.In a dazzling series of lectures from her tenure as a professor at Princeton University, Toni Morrison interrogates America’s most famous works and authors, drawing a direct line from the Black bodies that ... Read more

$22.00 USD

Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison investigates Black characters in the American literary canon and the way they shaped the nation’s collective unconscious.In a dazzling series of lectures from her tenure as a professor at Princeton University, Toni Morrison interrogates America’s most famous works and authors, drawing a direct line from the Black bodies that
... Read more
Audiobook

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Book Analysis)

Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide

by Bright Summaries ...

Narrated by Sara Wright ...

Series series BrightSummaries.com
Unabridged

25 min

Unlock the more straightforward side of Homegoing with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!This engaging summary presents an analysis of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, which tells the story of two branches of the same family across several generations. Although Effia and Esi are sisters, they never meet, and their paths are irrevocably forced apart when Esi is sold into slavery and ... Read more

$29.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

Unlock the more straightforward side of Homegoing with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!This engaging summary presents an analysis of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, which tells the story of two branches of the same family across several generations. Although Effia and Esi are sisters, they never meet, and their paths are irrevocably forced apart when Esi is sold into slavery and
... Read more
Audiobook

The Strange Career of Racial Liberalism

by Joseph Darda ...

Narrated by Andrew Joseph Perez ...

Unabridged

10 hours 5 min

How Americans learned to wait on time for racial changeWhat if, Joseph Darda asks, our desire to solve racism—with science, civil rights, antiracist literature, integration, and color blindness—has entrenched it further? In The Strange Career of Racial Liberalism, he traces the rise of liberal antiracism, showing how reformers' faith in time, in the moral arc of the universe, has undercut future ... Read more

$24.99 USD

How Americans learned to wait on time for racial changeWhat if, Joseph Darda asks, our desire to solve racism—with science, civil rights, antiracist literature, integration, and color blindness—has entrenched it further? In The Strange Career of Racial Liberalism, he traces the rise of liberal antiracism, showing how reformers' faith in time, in the moral arc of the universe, has undercut future
... Read more
Audiobook

Light and Legacies

Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation

by Janaka Bowman Lewis ...

Narrated by Janaka Bowman Lewis ...

Unabridged

7 hours 22 min

An engaging examination of Black Girl Magic and its significance in American literatureIn Light and Legacies, author Janaka Bowman Lewis examines Black girlhood in American literature from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The representation of Black girlhood in contemporary literature has long remained underexplored. Through this literary history of "Black Girl Magic," Lewis offers one of ... Read more

$19.99 USD

An engaging examination of Black Girl Magic and its significance in American literatureIn Light and Legacies, author Janaka Bowman Lewis examines Black girlhood in American literature from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The representation of Black girlhood in contemporary literature has long remained underexplored. Through this literary history of "Black Girl Magic," Lewis offers one of
... Read more
Audiobook

The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison

by Ralph Ellison ...

Narrated by John F. Callahan, Dominic Hoffman ...

Unabridged

49 hours 5 min

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A radiant collection of letters from the renowned author of Invisible Man that traces the life and mind of a giant of American literature, with insights into the riddle of identity, the writer’s craft, and the story of a changing nation over six decadesThese extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great ... Read more

$45.00 USD

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A radiant collection of letters from the renowned author of Invisible Man that traces the life and mind of a giant of American literature, with insights into the riddle of identity, the writer’s craft, and the story of a changing nation over six decadesThese extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great
... Read more
Audiobook

Black Is the Body

Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine

by Emily Bernard ...

Narrated by Emily Bernard ...

Unabridged

5 hours 55 min

“Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges randomly, unpredictably. . . . Race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.”In these twelve deeply personal, connected essays, Bernard details the experience of growing up ... Read more

$15.00 USD

“Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges randomly, unpredictably. . . . Race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.”In these twelve deeply personal, connected essays, Bernard details the experience of growing up
... Read more
Audiobook

GAME OF LIFE, THE

THE BLUEPRINT

by LYRIC HAWKINS ...

Narrated by Digital Voice Madison G ...

Series Audiobook 3 - THE 14 CHAMBERS OF POWER ROOTS & RESISTANCE
Unabridged

6 hours 19 min

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.THE GAME OF LIFETHE BLUEPRINTLife is a game filled with complexities, challenges, and triumphs. To master it requires not just skill but a profound understanding of the rules, strategies, and mindset needed to succeed. In "The Game of Life: The Blueprint," Lyric Hawkins shares his personal journey from the gritty streets of SouthSide Jamaica Queens to ... Read more

$19.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.THE GAME OF LIFETHE BLUEPRINTLife is a game filled with complexities, challenges, and triumphs. To master it requires not just skill but a profound understanding of the rules, strategies, and mindset needed to succeed. In "The Game of Life: The Blueprint," Lyric Hawkins shares his personal journey from the gritty streets of SouthSide Jamaica Queens to
... Read more
Audiobook

The Omni-Americans

Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy

by Albert Murray ...

Narrated by Mirron Willis ...

Unabridged

7 hours 10 min

Rediscover the "most important book on black-white relationships" in America in this special fiftieth anniversary edition."The United States is in actuality not a nation of black people and white people. It is a nation of multicolored people. . . . Any fool can see that the white people are not really white, and that black people are not black. They are all interrelated one way or another." These ... Read more

$19.99 USD

Rediscover the "most important book on black-white relationships" in America in this special fiftieth anniversary edition."The United States is in actuality not a nation of black people and white people. It is a nation of multicolored people. . . . Any fool can see that the white people are not really white, and that black people are not black. They are all interrelated one way or another." These
... Read more
Audiobook

Playing in the Dark

Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

by Toni Morrison ...

Narrated by Bahni Turpin ...

Unabridged

3 hours 9 min

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race—and promises to change the way we read American literature—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner"[Morrison] boldly...reimagines and remaps the possibility of America."—Chicago TribuneMorrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence ... Read more

$12.50 USD

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race—and promises to change the way we read American literature—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner"[Morrison] boldly...reimagines and remaps the possibility of America."—Chicago TribuneMorrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence
... Read more
Audiobook

'Membering Austin Clarke

Narrated by Mark Taylor, Hillary Warden ...

Unabridged

8 hours 37 min

'Membering Austin Clarke reflects on the life and writing of Austin Clarke, whose depictions of Black life in Canada enlarged our understanding of what Canadian literature looks like.Despite being one of Canada's most widely published, and most richly awarded writers, Austin Clarke (1934–2016) is not a household name. This collection addresses Clarke's marginalization in Canadian literature by ... Read more

$39.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

'Membering Austin Clarke reflects on the life and writing of Austin Clarke, whose depictions of Black life in Canada enlarged our understanding of what Canadian literature looks like.Despite being one of Canada's most widely published, and most richly awarded writers, Austin Clarke (1934–2016) is not a household name. This collection addresses Clarke's marginalization in Canadian literature by
... Read more
Audiobook

Lenny Henry's What's So Great About...?

And 4 other BBC documentaries

by Lenny Henry ...

Narrated by Lenny Henry ...

Unabridged

6 hours 50 min

A collection of BBC radio shows presented by comedian and actor Lenny Henry.Stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, TV presenter: Lenny Henry is a multi-talented Renaissance man with a wide range of interests. But there are a few things (and people) he just doesn't get, despite their iconic status - and in ***What's So Great About...?***, he explores them to find out what makes them so appealing ... Read more

$17.99 USD

A collection of BBC radio shows presented by comedian and actor Lenny Henry.Stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, TV presenter: Lenny Henry is a multi-talented Renaissance man with a wide range of interests. But there are a few things (and people) he just doesn't get, despite their iconic status - and in ***What's So Great About...?***, he explores them to find out what makes them so appealing
... Read more
Audiobook

From Mammies to Militants

Domestics in Black American Literature from Charles Chesnutt to Toni Morrison

by Trudier Harris ...

Narrated by Diana Blue ...

Unabridged

8 hours 44 min

From Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition to Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Black writers, some of whom worked as maids themselves, have manipulated the stereotype in a strategic way as a figure to comment on Black-white relations or to dramatize the conflicts of the Black protagonists. In fact, the characters themselves, like real-life maids, often use the stereotype to their advantage or ... Read more

$19.99 USD

From Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition to Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Black writers, some of whom worked as maids themselves, have manipulated the stereotype in a strategic way as a figure to comment on Black-white relations or to dramatize the conflicts of the Black protagonists. In fact, the characters themselves, like real-life maids, often use the stereotype to their advantage or
... Read more

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