20 books by Black Canadian authors to read in honour of Emancipation Day 2024
Aug. 1, 2024 marks the third Emancipation Day in Canada. The designation commemorates the abolition of slavery across the British Empire on Aug. 1, 1834.
On that day, the Slavery Abolition Act came into effect, freeing more than 800,000 people of African descent in Canada and throughout the British Empire.
To mark Emancipation Day, here are 20 books by Canadian authors that examine themes of racial and social justice and the experience of being Black in Canada and beyond.
Black Activist, Black Scientist, Black Icon by Howard Douglas McCurdy & George Elliott Clarke
Black Activist, Black Scientist, Black Icon is the biography of Dr. Howard McCurdy, one of Canada's most iconic Black politicians and activists, written with George Elliott Clarke, the country's former parliamentary poet laureate. Black Activist, Black Scientist, Black Icon documents McCurdy's life and career: his achievements include becoming Canada's first Black tenured professor, a founder of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the second Black member of Parliament in Canada. McCurdy died on Feb. 20, 2018 at the age of 85.
McCurdy was a founder of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; a founder of the National Black Coalition of Canada; the person who named the New Democratic Party; and the second Black person elected to Parliament. He was also a biology professor and human rights activist who was heavily involved in the civil rights movement in Essex County in the 1950s and 1960s.
Clarke is a Canadian poet, writer, activist and author. He was Canada's parliamentary poet laureate and was the fourth poet laureate of Toronto. He is a member of the Order of Nova Scotia and the Order of Canada, and his recognitions include the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award. Clarke currently teaches African-Canadian literature at the University of Toronto. His other books include Whylah Falls, George and Rue and The Motorcyclist.
We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr
We Rip the World Apart is a novel that tells the layered story of Kareela, a 24-year-old, biracial woman, who finds out she's pregnant and is struggling to find herself; her mother, Evelyn, who fled to Canada from Jamaica in the 1980s; and her paternal grandmother, Violet, who moved into their house after Kareela's brother was killed by the police. The novel weaves the past, present and future as secrets are shared and buried and choices are made that have lasting reverberations.
Carr is a Toronto-raised writer and author based in Nova Scotia. She is the author of several independently published novels and a novella. Her first novel with a major publisher is Hold My Girl. She was named a writer to watch in 2023 by CBC Books.
My Fighting Family by Morgan Campbell
My Fighting Family is a detailed history of one family's battles across the generations and reckons with what it means being a Black Canadian with strong American roots. Sports journalist and writer Morgan Campbell traces his family's roots in the rural American south to their eventual cross-border split and the grudges and squabbles along the way. From the south side of Chicago in the 1930s to the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and Morgan's life dealing with the racial tensions in Canada — My Fighting Family is about journeying to find clarity in conflict.
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Morgan Campbell reflects on his family legacy in his memoir My Fighting Family — read an excerpt now
Morgan Campbell is a journalist and a senior contributor at CBC Sports. He was a sports writer at the Toronto Star for over 18 years. His work highlights where sports intersects with off-the-field issues like race, culture, politics and business. His memoir My Fighting Family is his first book.
Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin
Code Noir is the debut novel of Canadian poet, thinker and writer Canisia Lubrin. The novel's structure examines the infamous real-life "Code Noir" — a set of 59 historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of enslaved Black people in the French colonial empire — and reframes it with 59 loosely connected stories that explore identity and humanity. Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction, Code Noir features characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.
Canisia Lubrin is a writer, editor and teacher. Her debut poetry collection, Voodoo Hypothesis, was longlisted for the Gerald Lambert Award, the Pat Lowther Award and was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award. Her poetry collection The Dyzgraphxst won the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Prize for poetry.
Building a Nest from the Bones of My People by Cara-Lyn Morgan
Building a Nest from the Bones of My People begins with the speaker realizing their experience with sexual abuse in their family. In this poetry collection, Cara-Lyn Morgan writes about first-time motherhood, generational trauma and colonization.
Cara-Lyn Morgan is a Métis and Trinidadian poet and writer from Regina. Her other poetry collections include What Became My Grieving and Cartograph.
The Islands by Dionne Irving
Set across the United States, Jamaica and Europe from the 1950s to present day, The Islands details the migration stories of Jamaican women and their descendants. Each short story explores colonialism and its impact as women experience the ongoing tensions between identity and the place they long to call home.
The Islands was shortlisted for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Dionne Irving is a writer and creative writing teacher from Toronto. She released her first novel, Quint, in 2021 and her work has been featured in journals and magazines like LitHub, Missouri Review and New Delta Review. The Islands is her debut short story collection.
Black Boys Like Me by Matthew R. Morris
Matthew R. Morris was influenced by the prominent Black male figures he saw in sports, TV shows and music while growing up in Scarborough, Ont. Morris is the son of a white mother and immigrant Black father, and grew up striving for academic success whilst confronting Black stereotypes and exploring hip hop culture in the 1990s. In his collection of eight personal essays, Black Boys Like Me, he examines his own experiences with race and identity throughout childhood into his current work as an educator in Toronto.
Morris is a writer, advocate and educator currently based in Toronto. As a public speaker, he has travelled across North America to educate on anti-racism in the education system. Black Boys Like Me is his first book.
The Long Emancipation by Rinaldo Walcott
In The Long Emancipation, Toronto academic and writer Rinaldo Walcott posits that Black people globally live in the time of emancipation — and that emancipation is not freedom. Taking examples from across the globe, he argues that wherever Black people have been emancipated from slavery and colonization, a potential true freedom has been thwarted.
Rinaldo Walcott is a professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto and the author of several books, including Black Like Who?: Writing Black Canada and On Property.
Disorientation: Being Black in the World by Ian Williams
Inspired by the essays of James Baldwin and spurred by the police killings and street protests of 2020, writer Ian Williams offers a perspective distinct from the many America-centric books on race — an outlook honed by the fact he has lived in Trinidad (where he was never the only Black person in the room), in Canada (where he often was), and in the United States (where as a Black man from the Caribbean, he was a different kind of 'only').
Disorientation was on the shortlist for the 2021 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Ian Williams is a poet, novelist and professor from Brampton, Ont., who is currently teaching at the University of British Columbia. His debut novel Reproduction won the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize. He is also the author of the poetry collection Personals, which was a finalist for the 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize.
The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke
Acclaimed as one of Canada's most important novels examining the Black experience, The Polished Hoe unravels over the course of 24 hours but spans the lifetime of one woman and the collective experience of a society informed by slavery. Set on the post-colonial West Indian island of Bimshire in 1952, the story brings together elements of the African diaspora in one epic sweep.
First published in 2002, The Polished Hoe was re-released in a special 20th anniversary edition from Dundurn Press in September 2022, featuring a new cover and a foreword by Clarke's friend and former housemate Rinaldo Walcott.
The Polished Hoe won the 2002 Giller Prize, the 2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best book overall and the 2003 Trillium Book Award.
Austin Clarke was a Barbados-born, Toronto-based professor of literature who taught at universities across the U.S., including Yale, where he assisted in setting up a Black Studies program in 1968, after which he became the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Barbados in Washington, D.C. His writing work included eleven novels, six short story collections and four memoirs. He died in June 2016.
Griot: Six Writers' Sojourn Into the Dark, edited by Whitney French
This anthology of work from participants of the Black Pen intensive creative writing program at Toronto's Nia Centre for the Arts features fiction and non-fiction that explores the Black experience, crosses global borders and embraces tradition while pushing the art of storytelling forward.
The chapbook was edited and curated by Whitney French, the founder of the Writing While Black workshop series and co-publisher of Hush Harbour, a Black feminist queer press. It features writing from Yvvana Yeboah Duku, Adeola Egbeyemi, Onyka Gairey, Saherla Osman, Kais Padamshi and Omi Rodney.
Uncertain Kin by Janice Lynn Mather
Set in the Bahamas, this collection of 18 stories follows women and girls searching for identity and belonging during moments of profound upheaval. Grounded in folkloric and surreal elements, these stories speak to the beauty and brutality of being alive.
Janice Lynn Mather is a novelist and short story writer born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas, who now lives in Vancouver. Her other books include Learning to Breathe, which was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text.
I Am Because We Are by Chidiogo Akunyili-Parr
In her first book, Chidiogo Akunyili-Parr traces the story of her mother Dora Akunyili, an activist inspired by the African philosophy of Ubuntu — the importance of community over the individual. Dora took on fraudulent drug manufacturers whose products killed millions, including her sister. A woman in a man's world, she was elected and became a cabinet minister, but had to deal with political manoeuvrings, death threats and an assassination attempt for defending the voiceless.
Chidiogo Akunyili-Parr is a Nigerian Canadian writer, speaker, storyteller and movement-builder who has worked with global organizations including the World Economic Forum and the Ubuntu Foundation.
Each One a Furnace by Tolu Oloruntoba
Tolu Oloruntoba's second full-length collection of poetry explores migration, diasporas, transience and instability through looking at the behavior and large variety of finches — a migratory bird that typifies the unrest that marks the lives of millions of people all over the globe today.
Tolu Oloruntoba is a writer from Nigeria now based in Surrey, B.C. His first full-length poetry collection, The Junta of Happenstance, won the 2022 Griffin Prize and the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. He is the founder of the literary magazine Klorofyl and author of the chapbook Manubrium, which was shortlisted for the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award.
The Day-Breakers by Michael Fraser
In The Day-Breakers, poet Michael Fraser imagines the selflessness of Black soldiers who fought for the Union during the American Civil War — including hundreds of African Canadians. In his poems, Fraser captures the rhythms of their voices and offers an homage to their sacrifice as well as a powerful new perspective on Black history and experience.
Michael Fraser is an award-winning poet and writer based in Toronto. He has been published in several anthologies and his books include To Greet Yourself Arriving and The Serenity of Stone. His poem African Canadian in Union Blue won the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize.
The Magic Shell by Jillian Christmas, illustrated by Diana G. A. Mungaray
This picture book for young readers explores the roots of family across time and place. When Pigeon Pea has a million questions about their family, Auntie gives them the magic key to go back in time and across continents to meet, celebrate, and feast with their ancestors and orisha.
Jillian Christmas is an educator, activist and community organizer who focuses on increasing anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word. She is the former artistic director of Vancouver's Verses Festival of Words.
Songs of Irie by Asha Ashanti Bromfield
Songs of Irie is a historical coming-of-age YA novel set in 1976. Irie and Jilly are from two different worlds — Jilly lives in the hills, safe in a mansion, while Irie is from the heart of Kingston, where fighting on the streets is a regular occurrence. Tension is building on the streets and there is civil unrest in the lead-up to an important election. Irie and Jilly bond at Irie's dad's record store over their love of Reggae music and must fight for their friendship, and budding romance, to survive.
Asha Ashanti Bromfield is a writer, actress, singer and producer of Afro-Jamaican descent. She is known for starring as Melody Valentine, drummer for the band Josie and the Pussycats, in the television show Riverdale and as Zadie Wells in the Netflix show Locke and Key. Her YA novels include Hurricane Summer and Songs of Irie. She is from Toronto. CBC Books named Bromfield a Black Canadian writer to watch in 2022.
The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
In the Nigerian city of Enugu, young Nwabulu, a housemaid since the age of ten, dreams of becoming a typist amid her endless chores and is in love with a rich man's son. Meanwhile, educated and privileged Julie is a modern woman living on her own, refusing to become a lovestruck man's second wife.
When a kidnapping years later forces the two women together, they share their stories as they await their fate. Set against the backdrop of Nigeria over four decades, The Son of the House celebrates the resilience of women as they navigate what still remains a man's world.
The Son of the House was shortlisted for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia is a lawyer, academic and writer who divides her time between Lagos and Halifax. The Son of the House is her first novel.
The Island of Forgetting by Jasmine Sealy
The Island of Forgetting is an intimate saga spanning four generations of one family who run a beachfront hotel. Starting in the 1960s and moving from Barbados to Canada, the story examines complex relationships, race, sexuality and the many ways a family's past can haunt its future.
Jasmine Sealy is a Barbadian-Canadian writer based in Vancouver. She won the 2020 UBC/HarperCollins Best New Fiction Prize and was longlisted for the 2017 CBC Short Story Prize. The Island of Forgetting is her debut novel.
A Place Inside of Me by Zetta Elliott, illustrated by Noa Denmon
In this affirming poem by award-winning author Zetta Elliott, a Black child explores his shifting emotions throughout the year after his joyful summer is impacted by a police shooting in his community. As the seasons change, both he and his community find themselves moving through fear and anger ultimately to pride and peace.
Zetta Elliott is a Canadian children's writer and poet now based in the U.S. Her previous picture books include Dragons in a Bag and The Dragon Thief.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out CBC's Being Black in Canada series.
