19 Canadian books to check out during Black History Month 2024

Black History Month 2024 is the perfect time to check out this buzzworthy list of recent fiction, nonfiction and poetry books created by some of Canada's most talked about Black authors.

• Calling all writers! The 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize is now open

In The Upper Country by Kai Thomas

In The Upper Country is the story of young Lensinda Martin, who is summoned to interview an old woman who shot and killed a slave hunter. The woman, who recently arrived in Dunmore, Alta., via the Underground Railroad, refuses to confess but instead proposes a deal: a story for a story. Through these stories, the interwoven nature of Indigenous and Black histories in North America become apparent and Lensinda's destiny could be changed forever.

In The Upper Country won the 2023 Writers' Trust Atwood Gibson Award for fiction and was shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.

• Kai Thomas's novel In the Upper Country is a fresh take on Black Canadian history & the Underground Railroad

Kai Thomas is a writer, carpenter and land steward. Born and raised in Ottawa, he is of Black and mixed heritage descended from Trinidad and the British Isles. CBC Books named Thomas a Black writer to watch in 2023. 

LISTEN | Kai Thomas discusses In the Upper Country:

The Next Chapter11:43Kai Thomas discusses his award-winning debut novel, In The Upper Country

In this fictional portrayal of mid-19th century Ontario, a young Black journalist is summoned after a bounty hunter is murdered. In The Upper Country won the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction prize.

Shut Up You're Pretty by Téa Mutonji

Shut Up You're Pretty is a short fiction collection that tells stories of a young woman coming of age in the 21st century in Scarborough, Ont. The disarming, punchy and observant stories follow her as she watches someone decide to shave her head in an abortion clinic waiting room, bonds with her mother over fish and contemplates her Congolese traditions at a wedding. 

Kudakwashe Rutendo will champion Shut Up You're Pretty by Téa Mutonji on Canada Reads 2024.

Shut Up You're Pretty was also on the 2019 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize shortlist and won the 2020 Edmund White Award for debut fiction. 

• Read an excerpt from Shut Up You're Pretty now

Téa Mutonji was named a writer to watch in 2019 by CBC Books. Born in Congo-Kinshasa, Mutonji is also the editor of the anthology Feel Ways: A Scarborough Anthology. She currently lives in Toronto.

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. 

• Matthew R. Morris writes about growing up Black and navigating race and identity in book Black Boys Like Me

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.

LISTEN | Matthew Morris discusses the expectations placed on young Black men:

The Next Chapter14:30Matthew R. Morris reflects on growing up in Scarborough in the 90s, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and exploring Black identity

The writer and educator discusses his new nonfiction book, Black Boy Like Me, which explores public education, pop culture and his identity as a young Black man with an immigrant father and a white mother.

River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta

River Mumma is a magical realist story inspired by Jamaican folklore. The main character is a young Black woman having a quarter-life crisis while adventuring through the streets of Toronto. The story follows Alicia, a young woman who still lives at home with her mom and has no career prospects. One evening, River Mumma, the Jamaican water deity, appears to inform Alicia that she has 24 hours to find her missing comb in the city.

Why River Mumma chose her is a mystery. Alicia barely remembers the legends she was told about the deity as a child. Still, Alicia embarks on her quest through the city which turns into a journey through time — to find herself, but also what the river carries.

• Zalika Reid-Benta's new novel River Mumma is a magical realism take on the quarter-life crisis

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based author who explores race, identity and culture through the lens of second-generation Caribbean Canadians in her work. The Columbia MFA graduate's debut novel Frying Plantain was on the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. CBC Books named Reid-Benta a writer to watch in 2019 and she served as jury chair for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

LISTEN | Zalika Reid-Benta on Q:

Q18:59How staying true to herself helped Zalika Reid-Benta become an award-winning author

The author Zalika Reid-Benta was only 28 when she took the book industry by storm. Her debut book, “Frying Plantain,” was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. But here’s the thing: Zalika almost didn’t finish that book after some initial feedback deemed the manuscript “too Jamaican” and “too Canadian.” Now, she’s back with her second book and debut novel, “River Mumma” — a fantasy that unequivocally pays homage to her roots. She talks to Tom about her new novel and how her unwavering commitment to her roots paid off.

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's The Islands follows the migration stories of Jamaican women

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. 

LISTEN | Dionne Irving speaks with The Next Chapter's Ryan B. Patrick:

The Next Chapter13:12Searching for home and belonging in The Islands

Dionne Irving grew up working at her family's Caribbean grocery store in Toronto, and it was where she found inspiration for some of the stories in her Scotiabank Giller Prize-shortlisted collection The Islands.

Bottom Rail on Top by D.M. Bradford

Bottom Rail on Top is a collection of poems which embodies the Black histories of antebellum life and emancipation in America. Bottom Rail on Top meditates on lineage and legacy through poetic fragments.

• 6 Black Canadian writers to watch in 2023

D.M. Bradford is a Montreal-based poet and translator. Their other books include Dream of No One but Myself, which won the 2022 A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and their translated book House Within a House.

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. 

• Charlene Carr explores Black and biracial identity in the Maritimes with novel We Rip the World Apart

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.

LISTEN | Charlene Carr on having moving in common with her protagonist, race, politics and grief:

The Next Chapter12:55The cost of keeping silent in We Rip the World Apart

Moving from the diverse streets of Toronto to rural Atlantic Canada at a young age is something both Charlene Carr and the protagonist of her latest novel share in common. The Nova Scotia writer discusses race, politics and grief in her latest book We Rip the World Apart.

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

Ordinary Notes reflects on questions about Black life in the wake of loss. Christina Sharpe brings together the past and present realities with possible futures to construct a portrait of everyday Black existence. The book touches on language, beauty, memory, art, photography and literature.

Ordinary Notes won the 2023 Writers' Trust Hilary Weston Prize for nonfiction. 

• Christina Sharpe reflects on the complexities of Black life through a new literary form

Sharpe is a writer and professor. She is also the author of In the Wake: On Blackness and Being and Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects. Sharpe is the Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the department of humanities, at York University, in Toronto.

Sharpe, along with Canadian writers Michelle Good and Dan Werb will judge the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

LISTEN | Christina Sharpe speaks to Shelagh Rogers about Ordinary Notes:

The Next Chapter18:37Christina Sharpe on Ordinary Notes

Christina Sharpe talks to Shelagh Roger about her book, Ordinary Notes.

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.

• Morgan Campbell reflects on his family legacy in his memoir My Fighting Family — read an excerpt now

Morgan Campbell is an 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 focused on the self to speak her universal truths in her latest poetry collection

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.

WATCH | Canisia Lubrin performs a powerful pandemic poem:

This poem by Canisia Lubrin confronts our failure to protect the elderly early in the pandemic

3 years ago

Duration 4:02

Poets unflinchingly face the world in its complexity in Poetry on the Mainstage, part of the Frankfurt Book Fair where Canada is featured as the Guest of Honour.

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. 

• The late Canadian Black activist, scientist and politician Howard McCurdy in his own words

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. 

LISTEN | George Elliott Clarke reflects on the life of Howard McCurdy:

In Town and Out14:47George Elliott Clarke's new biography of Howard McCurdy.

Canadian poet and author George Elliot Clarke says many people don't know enough about his late friend, Dr. Howard D. McCurdy - a Black civil rights activist, a scientist, and politician. But Clarke plans to change that through his work to complete a new autobiography.

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. 

Where We End & Begin by Jane Igharo

In Where We End & Begin, two star-crossed lovers named Obinna and Dunni reunite at a wedding, rekindling their old high school romance. They had broken up when Dunni left Nigeria to go to college in America. While things have changed, they are still drawn to each other. However, as they rediscover each other — bringing up secrets, and incidents from the past — Dunni must figure out if their love from their younger days is enough to keep them together. 

• 12 Canadian books about love and romance to read

Jane Igharo immigrated to Canada from Nigeria when she was 12 years old. She currently lives in Toronto. She is also the author of the novel was Ties That Tether.

The African Samurai by Craig Shreve

Yasuke was a 16th-century samurai. He was Japan's first foreign-born samurai, and the only samurai of African descent. His story is special, and little known. Canadian writer Craig Shreve, hopes to change that with his novel The African Samurai. 

The African Samurai tells Yasuke's story. As a boy, he is sold as a slave to Portuguese mercenaries. A series of unlikely events results in Yasuke finding himself in Japan, now imprisoned by the powerful warlord Oda Nobunaga. From there, the two forge an unlikely bond, and Yasuke begins his journey to becoming a samurai, and the power that comes with it. But with this power comes attention, risk, danger ⁠— and the chance to make history.

• Yasuke was a samurai of African descent. Craig Shreve's new novel will give him the attention he deserves

Shreve is a writer originally from North Buxton, Ont. He is also the author of One Night in Mississippi.

LISTEN | Craig Shreve discusses The African Samurai:

Q15:45Craig Shreve: The fascinating true story of Yasuke, the mysterious African samurai

Not much is known about Yasuke — an enslaved Black man from Africa who ended up working as a samurai in some of Japan’s most notable houses — but that didn’t stop Craig Shreve from writing about him in his new novel, “The African Samurai.” Craig tells Tom why he was drawn to the 16th-century story and the challenges he faced turning this forgotten history into a novel.

Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke

Broughtupsy, the debut novel of Christina Cooke, is a coming-of-age story that explores what it means to be a gay woman in Jamaica. When Akúa's sibling suddenly dies, she returns home to Jamaica for the first time in ten years. After meeting and falling in love with a local woman named Jayda, Akúa is forced to confront the difficult reality of being gay in a deeply religious family and how to be at peace with her relatives — and herself.

Cooke is a Jamaican-born Canadian writer based in New York City. Cooke's writing has previously appeared in PRISM international, The Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner and Epiphany. She was a 2023 Writers' Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize winner and 2022 Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award winner.

Wires that Sputter by Britta Badour

Britta Badour's debut collection of poetry, Wires that Sputter, explores topics like pop culture, sports, family dynamics and Black liberation. 

• Britta Badour's powerful poetry is inspired by her family, community and her experience of Blackness

Badour, better known as Britta B., is an artist, public speaker and poet living in Toronto. She is the recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Artist Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation. She teaches spoken word performance at Seneca College.

LISTEN | Britta Badour on The Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter21:32Britta Badour’s electric poetry collection reveals her unique experience of the world.

Canadian poet and award-winning spoken word performer Britta Badour, aka Britta B, shares the inspirations behind her debut poetry collection, Wires that Sputter.

Ignite by Andre De Grasse

Ignite: Unlock the Hidden Potential Within is a book about Andre De Grasse's journey to becoming the most decorated male summer Olympian in Canadian history. It tells De Grasse's story while sharing the lessons he has learned about achieving success and finding happiness along the way. 

• Canadian Olympic star Andre De Grasse publishing new book, Ignite, out this fall

De Grasse is a six-time Olympic medallist and World champion sprinter, and the founder of the Andre De Grasse Family Foundation. He is also the author of the picture book Race with Me!

WATCH | Andre de Grasse discusses his future after athletics:

"I can't run forever": Andre De Grasse opens up about future plans in new book | Athletics North

1 year ago

Duration 4:29

Andre De Grasse learned a lot about himself when writing his new book 'Ignite', in which, he tells stories of his life and learnings as the 'accidental sprinter'.

Bedroom Rapper by Rollie Pemberton

Rollie Pemberton is best known by his stage name, Cadence Weapon. His memoir, Bedroom Rapper, intertwines his own personal journey in the music industry with an in-depth exploration of the history of hip-hop. 

• Rollie Pemberton's memoir Bedroom Rapper presents an alternate history of Canadian hip hop

Pemberton is an Alberta rapper, poet, journalist and on-air personality. He won the 2021 Polaris Prize for his album Parallel World. His writing has been published in Pitchfork, The Guardian, Wired and Hazlitt. Currently based in Toronto, Pemberton was a former poet laureate for Edmonton.

LISTEN | Rollie Pemberton on his memoir Bedroom Rapper:

The Next Chapter11:42Canadian rap artist Cadence Weapon gives us his take on the history of Hip-Hop and how he found his creative voice. (Encore: February 17, 2023)

Rollie Pemberton- AKA Cadence Weapon- dives into the music industry's machinations, weaving his own story with the history of hip-hop and rap, in his memoir Bedroom Rapper: Cadence Weapon on Hip-Hop, Resistance, and Surviving the Music Industry. 

Let It Go by Chelene Knight

Let It Go by Vancouver author Chelene Knight explores ways to make resolutions that will bring more joy to one's life. The nonfiction work draws on personal experience and the advice of leaders from various Black communities to share methods of improving emotional and mental health during times of hardship. This includes looking at ways to reshape communication with those closest to you and redefine language, relationships and love to find one's own unique path to joy.

• Chelene Knight reimagines Vancouver's historic Black neighbourhood Hogan's Alley

Knight is a writer and poet from Vancouver. She is also the author of the Braided Skin and the memoir Dear Current Occupant, which won the 2018 Vancouver Book Award. Her 2022 novel Junie was on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024 and won the 2023 Vancouver Book Award. Her work has appeared in literary magazines in Canada and the U.S. and she has been a judge for literary awards, including the B.C. Book Prizes.

LISTEN | Chelene Knight discusses Let It Go:

BC Today52:39New year's financial outlook and how to "Let it Go" with author Charlene Knight

In our first half, guest host Dan Burritt talks about personal finance with Mark Kalinowski, financial educator, Credit Counselling Society in Calgary and Mark Ting, On the Coast's financial columnist and partner with Foundation Wealth. In our second half, award-winning B.C. author Chelene Knight joins us to talk about her new book "Let it Go: Free Yourself from Old Beliefs and Find a New Path to Joy", and how to make resolutions that will bring more joy to your life.

This list was curated by Ryan B. Patrick

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.