{"product_id":"best-african-american-fiction-isbn-9780553385342","title":"Best African American Fiction","description":"Introducing the first volume in an exciting new annual anthology featuring the year’s most outstanding fiction by some of today’s finest African American writers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom stories that depict black life in times gone by to those that address contemporary issues, this inaugural volume gathers the very best recent African American fiction. Created during a period of electrifying political dialogue and cultural, social, and economic change that is sure to captivate the imaginations of writers and readers for years to come, these short stories and novel excerpts explore a rich variety of subjects. But most of all, they represent exceptional artistry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere you’ll find work by both established names and up-and-comers, ranging from Walter Dean Myers to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mat Johnson, and Junot Díaz. They write about subjects as diverse as the complexities of black middle-class life and the challenges of interracial relationships, a modern-day lynching in the South and a young musician’s coming-of-age during the Harlem Renaissance. What unites these stories, whether set in suburbia, in eighteenth-century New York City, or on a Caribbean island that is supposed to be “brown skin paradise,” is their creators’ passionate engagement with matters of the human heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMasterful and engaging, this first volume of Best African American Fiction features stories you’ll want to savor, share, and return to again and again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlease click the \"Behind the Book\" link for contributor’s bios.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eIntroduction\/By Gerald Early, Series Editor\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\/By E. Lynn Harris, Guest Editor\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eStories\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003ePita Delicious\/By ZZ Packer\u003cbr\u003eAlbino Crow\/By Chris Abani\u003cbr\u003eOrb Weaver\/By Emily Raboteau\u003cbr\u003eThe Saving Work\/By Tiphanie Yanique\u003cbr\u003eDance for Me\/By Amina Gautier\u003cbr\u003eCell One\/By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u003cbr\u003eIn the Blink of God’s Eye\/By Edward P. Jones\u003cbr\u003eThis Kind of Red\/By Helen Elaine Lee\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNovel Excerpts\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eDark Reflections\/By Samuel R. Delany\u003cbr\u003eThe Great Negro Plot\/By Mat Johnson\u003cbr\u003eThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao\/By Junot Díaz\u003cbr\u003eMan Gone Down\/By Michael Thomas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYoung Adult Fiction\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eExcerpt from Feathers\/By Jacqueline Woodson\u003cbr\u003eExcerpt from Harlem Summer\/By Walter Dean Myers\u003cbr\u003eExcerpt from Elijah of Buxton\/By Christopher Paul Curtis\u003cbr\u003eExcerpt from Up for It: A Tale of the Underground\/By L.F. Haines\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePermissions and Credits\u003cbr\u003eAbout the Editors\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A treasure trove of discovery…Readers across racial lines will find reason for delight in this debut of what is intended as an annual series.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “There hasn’t been an anthology of such talented African-American literary figures since Marita Golden’s \u003ci\u003eGumbo\u003c\/i\u003e, and the result is a masterful bouquet of literary flowers, some grand, some subtle, but none shrinking…With something for every reader’s taste, this is a collection not to be missed.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This engaging collection…shows the incredible range of talent and focus of fiction written by African Americans.\"—\u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"These short stories, excerpts from novels, and thoughtful essays cover a broad range of subjects, experiences and perspectives from many of the best writers working today.\"—\u003ci\u003eSacramento Bee\u003c\/i\u003eE. Lynn Harris is a nine-time \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author. His work includes the memoir \u003ci\u003eWhat Becomes of the Brokenhearted\u003c\/i\u003e and the novels\u003ci\u003e, A Love of My Own,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eJust as I Am, Any Way the Wind Blows \u003c\/i\u003e(all three of which were named Novel of the Year by the Blackboard African American Bestsellers), \u003ci\u003eI Say a Little Prayer, If This World Were Mine \u003c\/i\u003e(which\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003ewon the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence), and the classic\u003ci\u003e Invisible Life\u003c\/i\u003e. His latest book is \u003ci\u003eJust Too Good to Be True\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGerald Early is a noted essayist and American culture critic. A professor of English, African \u0026amp; African American Studies, and American Culture Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Early is the author of several books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture,\u003c\/i\u003e which won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and \u003ci\u003eThis Is Where I Came In: Black America in the 1960s\u003c\/i\u003e. He is also editor of numerous volumes, including \u003ci\u003eThe Muhammad Ali Reader\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Sammy Davis, Jr. Reader\u003c\/i\u003e. He served as a consultant on four of Ken Burns’s documentary films, \u003ci\u003eBaseball, Jazz, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Wa\u003c\/i\u003er\u003ci\u003e,\u003c\/i\u003e and appeared in the first three as an on-air analyst.\u003ci\u003eFrom the Introduction\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Over the course of American literary history African Americans tried many times to read, write, and publish their own books as a sign of cultural independence and racial entrepreneurism. In the end, the act of wiring black fiction was both quixotic and heroic. It served black and white readers alike by reminding them that black people wanted to write fiction, for its own sake and because it might empower the race. And it served the nation by reminding everyone that the creation of black literature was an act of freedom. For every new possibility that blacks fulfilled, such as the utterly preposterous one of becoming fiction writers, further possibilities opened for everyone else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe effort required, however, was daunting.Not until after the Civil War would African American writers become sufficiently practiced in the craft of fiction writing to produce more than one novel or enough short stories to be collected in a volume. But those early writers, unpracticed and frequently unoriginal as they may have been, did much to establish a tradition of black literature. While these literary ancestors did not directly influence black writers who came later, one can appreciate them for a variety of reasons, even just for persevering to get what was in their heads on paper, at a time when society was organized to ensure that they had nothing in their heads and no way of putting anything on paper. For later generations, filiopiety has limits but also satisfies certain necessities of the mind and heart. As the bassist Charles Mingus once put it so succinctly, \"Thank god I've got roots!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy hope for the Best African American Fiction series is that it will show how far African American fiction has come and, more important, how far it extends.\" ~Gerald Early\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Considering the time and place of my Southern upbringing, it ought to come as no surprise that most of the books I encountered were by white authors. The libraries and schools were full of books by no one else. Not for years would I discover James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, the first book that truly spoke to me. It depicted a world I closely identified with; more than that, it suggested to me for the first time that I might become a writer, that my life as a young African American boy was story worthy of being written.While I can't claim that reading saved my life, books nevertheless profoundly shaped me. They made my dreams bigger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeing asked to write the introduction for the inaugural volume of Best African American Fiction is therefore a welcome opportunity to me as a reader and an honor to me as an author. It's the perfect chance to get acquainted with some of the best work by the best African American writers being published today. With this volume, whose knockout roster reads like a who's who of contemporary black fiction, it's difficult to know where to begin.\" ~E. 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