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

Souls of Black Folk, The

by W. E. B. Du Bois ...

Narrated by Royal Jaye ...

Unabridged

8 hours 22 min

“Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, — all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, — who is good? not that men are ignorant, — what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.”The Souls of Black Folk was published in 1903 as a collection of essays from W.E.B. Du Bois, an African-American sociologist who wrote frequently about his experiences as a Black ... Read more

$15.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

“Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, — all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, — who is good? not that men are ignorant, — what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.”The Souls of Black Folk was published in 1903 as a collection of essays from W.E.B. Du Bois, an African-American sociologist who wrote frequently about his experiences as a Black
... 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

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 Black Box

Writing the Race

by Henry Louis Gates Jr. ...

Narrated by Dominic Hoffman ...

Unabridged

7 hours 7 min

**A New York Times Notable Book • Shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Society's Christian Gauss Award for Outstanding Books in Literary Scholarship“Henry Louis Gates is a national treasure. Here, he returns with an intellectual and at times deeply personal meditation on the hard-fought evolution and the very meaning of African American identity, calling upon our country to transcend its ... Read more

$20.00 USD

**A New York Times Notable Book • Shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Society's Christian Gauss Award for Outstanding Books in Literary Scholarship“Henry Louis Gates is a national treasure. Here, he returns with an intellectual and at times deeply personal meditation on the hard-fought evolution and the very meaning of African American identity, calling upon our country to transcend its
... 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 Souls of Black Folk

by W. E. B. Du Bois ...

Narrated by Richard Allen ...

Unabridged

8 hours 39 min

W. E. B. Du Bois was the foremost black intellectual of his time. The Souls of Black Folk, his most influential work, is a collection of fourteen beautifully written essays, by turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical. Here, Du Bois records the cruelties of racism, celebrates the strength and pride of black America, and explores the paradoxical "double-consciousness" of African American ... Read more

$17.99 USD

W. E. B. Du Bois was the foremost black intellectual of his time. The Souls of Black Folk, his most influential work, is a collection of fourteen beautifully written essays, by turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical. Here, Du Bois records the cruelties of racism, celebrates the strength and pride of black America, and explores the paradoxical "double-consciousness" of African American
... 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

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

$14.95 USD

“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

The Spook who Sat by the Door

by Sam Greenlee ...

Narrated by Dion Graham, Natiki Hope Pressley ...

Unabridged

6 hours 6 min

Continuously available in print since 1968, this novel has become embedded in progressive anti-racist culture with wide circulation of the book and hotly debated film. A literary classic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a strong comment on entrenched racial inequities in the United States in the late 1960s. With its focus on the “militancy” that characterized the Black Power movement of the 1960s ... Read more

$17.99 USD

Continuously available in print since 1968, this novel has become embedded in progressive anti-racist culture with wide circulation of the book and hotly debated film. A literary classic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a strong comment on entrenched racial inequities in the United States in the late 1960s. With its focus on the “militancy” that characterized the Black Power movement of the 1960s
... Read more
Audiobook

James Baldwin: A Life in Four Acts: Volume 2: "The Paris Years" (1948-1957)

Finding His Voice in Exile

by David G. Stone ...

Narrated by Digital Voice Matt G ...

Series Audiobook 2 - BEYOND THE VEIL: The Uncompromising Life of James Baldwin
Unabridged

11 hours 2 min

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.What does it take to become the voice of a generation? Sometimes, you have to leave home to find it.In 1948, James Baldwin fled America—broke, unknown, and suffocating under the weight of racism and repression. He arrived in Paris with forty dollars and a dream: to write the truth about what it meant to be Black, queer, and American in the twentieth ... Read more

$25.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.What does it take to become the voice of a generation? Sometimes, you have to leave home to find it.In 1948, James Baldwin fled America—broke, unknown, and suffocating under the weight of racism and repression. He arrived in Paris with forty dollars and a dream: to write the truth about what it meant to be Black, queer, and American in the twentieth
... Read more
Audiobook

Liberation Literature

Virginia Hamilton's Speeches, Essays, and Conversations

by Virginia Hamilton ...

Narrated by Anika Noni Rose ...

Unabridged

13 hours 14 min

A monumental collection by one of America's greatest authors of children's literature.Virginia Hamilton (1936–2002) was not only one of the most magnificent writers who ever lived—winning honors such as the Newbery Medal, Newbery Honor, National Book Award, and the Coretta Scott King Award for classics like The House of Dies Drear, The People Could Fly, M. C. Higgins the Great, and Her Stories—she ... Read more

$25.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

A monumental collection by one of America's greatest authors of children's literature.Virginia Hamilton (1936–2002) was not only one of the most magnificent writers who ever lived—winning honors such as the Newbery Medal, Newbery Honor, National Book Award, and the Coretta Scott King Award for classics like The House of Dies Drear, The People Could Fly, M. C. Higgins the Great, and Her Stories—she
... Read more
Audiobook

James Baldwin

The Life Album

by Magdalena J. Zaborowska ...

Narrated by Sanya Simmons ...

Series series Black Lives
Unabridged

9 hours 19 min

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a pivotal figure of the twentieth century, an influential author, intellectual, and activist who led a celebrated public life—and whose words and image and persona remain current in our culture. Baldwin's many incarnations have reemerged in the digital age as Baldwin's work becomes a touchstone for a new generation. It is the private, vulnerable, and messier Baldwin ... Read more

$20.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a pivotal figure of the twentieth century, an influential author, intellectual, and activist who led a celebrated public life—and whose words and image and persona remain current in our culture. Baldwin's many incarnations have reemerged in the digital age as Baldwin's work becomes a touchstone for a new generation. It is the private, vulnerable, and messier Baldwin
... Read more
Audiobook

Black Women Writers at Work

Narrated by Allyson Johnson ...

Unabridged

9 hours 31 min

Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the twentieth century.Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the ... Read more

$19.99 USD

Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the twentieth century.Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the
... Read more
Audiobook

In Search of a Beautiful Freedom

New and Selected Essays

by Farah Jasmine Griffin ...

Narrated by Farah Jasmine Griffin ...

Unabridged

13 hours 9 min

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by The MillionsLively, insightful writings on Black music, feminism, literature, and events from a "masterful critic and master teacher" (Walton Muyumba, Boston Globe).In Search of a Beautiful Freedom brings together the best work from Farah Jasmine Griffin's rich forays on music, Black feminism, literature, the crises of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and ... Read more

$24.99 USD

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by The MillionsLively, insightful writings on Black music, feminism, literature, and events from a "masterful critic and master teacher" (Walton Muyumba, Boston Globe).In Search of a Beautiful Freedom brings together the best work from Farah Jasmine Griffin's rich forays on music, Black feminism, literature, the crises of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and
... Read more
Audiobook

Prophetic Leadership and Visionary Hope

New Essays on the Work of Cornel West

Narrated by Deanna Anthony ...

Unabridged

8 hours 29 min

Thirty years have passed since Cornel West's book Race Matters rose to the top of the bestseller lists in 1993. Yet his book remains as relevant as ever to American culture—even more so, if one considers its influence on contemporary racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, prison justice, and the fight for police reform. Prophetic Leadership and Visionary Hope looks back to the ... Read more

$19.99 USD

Thirty years have passed since Cornel West's book Race Matters rose to the top of the bestseller lists in 1993. Yet his book remains as relevant as ever to American culture—even more so, if one considers its influence on contemporary racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, prison justice, and the fight for police reform. Prophetic Leadership and Visionary Hope looks back to the
... Read more

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