UCLA Library curates a small sampling of Black art produced in the past year to read, watch and follow. There are works of fiction and not, poetry and visual paeans to Black history, hope and ingenuity. We hope this guide introduces you to something new or reacquaints you with an old favorite. We welcome your comments and feedback
"In this brilliant two-part memoir, the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Hilton Als distills into one cocktail the deep and potent complexities of love and of loss, of Prince and of power, of desire and of race. It’s delicious and it’s got the kick of a mule, especially as Als swirls into his mix the downtown queer nightclub scene, the AIDS crisis, Prince’s ass in his tight little pants, an ill-fated peach pie, Dorothy Parker, and his desire for true love."(Publisher's Description)
"Joy and Pain provides an intimate look into the manner in which the carceral state makes Black life precarious. Framing the carceral state as extending beyond the physical walls of a prison and into the daily lived experiences of Black life, the book focuses on housing, education, health care, the nonprofit sector, and juvenile detention facilities. However, Black existence is not defined only by precarity, and thus the book also describes the social visions of Black life that are immersed in radical freedom." (Publisher's Description)
"The protagonist of Percival Everett’s puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means “nothing” in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for “nothing.”) He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it. This makes him the perfect partner for the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal, well, not gold bars but a shoebox containing nothing. Once he controls nothing he’ll proceed with a dastardly plan to turn a Massachusetts town into nothing. Or so he thinks."(Publisher's Description)
"Sarah and Angelina Grimke--the Grimke sisters--are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Their antislavery pamphlets, among the most influential of the antebellum era, are still read today. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives. In The Grimkes, award-winning historian Kerri Greenidge presents a parallel narrative, indeed a long-overdue corrective, shifting the focus from the white abolitionist sisters to the Black Grimkes and deepening our understanding of the long struggle for racial and gender equality." (Publisher's Description)
"From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society. Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social structures than they are on biology alone." (Publisher's Description)
"Hewing close to the bone, the incendiary poems in The Listening Skin explore how an artist dares to dance and create through a pain-riddled body. Corporeal and spiritual, immediately personal and deeply historical, Redmond's latest collection details how generational cycles of poverty, mental and physical illness, and systemic racism impact the self, the family, and the greater African-American collective. Examining the connection between adverse childhood experiences and adult chronic conditions, Redmond's poems arise from her deepest listening, beyond the skin, rooted in the marrow. They speak to the hardship of enduring fibromyalgia and the ongoing challenges of multiple myeloma while rejoicing in survival and the grace of existence itself." (Publisher's Description)
"From a visionary writer praised for her captivating work on Black history and experience comes a poetry collection exploring personal, political, and artistic frontiers, journeying from her family’s history as “Afropioneers” in the American West to shimmering glimpses of transcendent, liberated futures. In poems that range from wry, tongue-in-cheek observations about contemporary life to more nuanced meditations on her ancestors—some of the earliest Black pioneers to settle in the western United States after Reconstruction—Golden Ax invites readers to re-imagine the West, Black womanhood, and the legacies that shape and sustain the pursuit of freedom." (Publisher's Description)
"Summer, 1999. Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens lives with her mother and older teenaged brother in building 4950 of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes. The high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority, and the neighborhood is beginning to fall down around them. Fe Fe is friends with Precious and Stacia, but when Fe Fe welcomes Tonya into their fold, the dynamics shift. Their friendships fray, as do the structures of the four girls' families. Fe Fe must make the painful decision of whom she can trust and whom she must let go. Decades later, remembering that fateful summer, Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left." (Jacket Description)
"Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed. One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department. Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before." (Publisher's Description)
"From his Memphis studio, Ernest Withers’ nearly 2 million images were a treasured record of Black history but his legacy was complicated by decades of secret FBI service revealed only after his death. Was he a friend of the civil rights community, or enemy—or both?" (PBS)
“This coming-of-age comedy tracks one very long day for Palace Bryant, a newly minted MFA grad whose final 24 hours in art school become a real trip.” (IMDB)
“Follows descendants of the survivors from the Clotilda, the last ship that carried enslaved Africans to the United States, as they reclaim their story.” (IMDB)
“Ready for a night of legendary partying, three college students must weigh the pros and cons of calling the police when faced with an unexpected situation.” (IMDB)
“Caroline Randall Williams, an award-winning writer, cookbook author and restaurateur, travels the United States uncovering the fascinating, essential and often untold Black stories behind American food.” (IMBD)
Nanny (2022) by Nikyatu Jusu
“Immigrant nanny Aisha, piecing together a new life in New York City while caring for the child of an Upper East Side family, is forced to confront a concealed truth that threatens to shatter her precarious American Dream.” (IMDB)
“In 1955, after Emmett Till is murdered in a brutal lynching, his mother vows to expose the racism behind the attack while working to have those involved brought to justice.” (IMDB)
Wendell and Wild(2022) by Henry Selick; screenplay by Jordan Peele
“Two scheming demon brothers, Wendell and Wild, enlist the aid of 13-year-old Kat Elliot to summon them to the Land of the Living.” (IMDB)
“A historical epic inspired by true events that took place in The Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries.” (IMDB)
Based in Columbus Ohio, Alexis Nikole Nelson is a forager, cook, and internet personality. She is best known for her TikTok @alexisnikole and Instagram @blackforager.
Schentell Nunn is the founder of Offerings, a Los Angeles-based floral design studio. Her work aims to replicate fantasy gardens that will cultivate a deeper connection between humans and flowers. (MotherDenim)
Led by record-breaking Hollywood producer Will Packer, The Lower Bottoms, is a scripted and shadowy podcast series told through the voices that make-up a quickly gentrifying neighborhood in West Oakland, California. Season two kicks off six months after the Freedom House fire and data leak scandal.
Hosted by Laci Mosley, this podcast keeps listeners up to date on current rackets, digs deep into the latest scams, and breaks down historic hoodwinks alongside some of your favorite comedians.
Journey deep into the heart of the world’s most remote jungles, savannas, tundras, mountains, and deserts with wildlife biologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant as she studies wild animals in their natural habitats.
Hosted by queer icons Jon Higgins and JoHo Daniels, BFF is a candid and hilarious podcast that gives voice to two of the leading queer, fat and Black changemakers while calling in the world to examine and understand what it means to love oneself unapologetically.