SJPL Recommends: Facing Racism Through FictionLike this list

50 items

• The Affairs of the Falcóns

  a Novel

  Rivero, Melissa,

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  Ana Falcón, along with her husband Lucho and their two young children, has fled the economic and political strife of Peru for a chance at a new life in New York City in the 1990s. Being undocumented, however, has significantly curtailed…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• America Is Not the Heart

  Castillo, Elaine,

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  Three generations of women from one immigrant family trying to reconcile the home they left behind with the life they're building in America.-Novelist

• Americanah

  Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 1977-

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  "A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected"-- Provided by publisher

• Behold the Dreamers

  a Novel

  Mbue, Imbolo,

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  This debut novel explores the lives of two families in New York City during the 2008 financial crisis. A heartfelt and engaging story that examines the American Dream through the eyes of an African immigrant family.

• Beloved

  Morrison, Toni,

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  "Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved" is a towering…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Burning

  Majumdar, Megha,

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  An opportunistic gym teacher and a starry-eyed misfit find the realization of their ambitions tied to the downfall of an innocent Muslim girl who has been wrongly implicated in a terrorist attack. -Novelist

• Ceremony

  Silko, Leslie Marmon, 1948-

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  "One Navajo family, on a New Mexico reservation, struggles to survive in a world no longer theirs in the years just before and after World War II." -Publisher provided

• The Color of Air

  a Novel

  Tsukiyama, Gail,

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  A young doctor finds his arrival home to Hawai’i coinciding with the awakening of the Mauna Loa volcano and its dangerous path toward their village, unearthing long-held secrets simmering below the surface that meld past and present.-…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Conjure Women

  a Novel

  Atakora, Afia,

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  "Like her mother, Rue is an all-knowing midwife, healer, and conjurer of curses on the plantation of Marse Charles. Moving back and forth in time between the years before and after the Civil War, this novel tells the story of Rue, the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Days of Distraction

  a Novel

  Chang, Alexandra, 1988-

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  "The plan is to leave. As for how, when, to where, and even why--she doesn't know yet. So begins a journey for the twenty-four-year-old narrator of Days of Distraction. As a staff writer at a prestigious tech publication, she reports on…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Delicious Foods

  a Novel

  Hannaham, James,

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  "Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs, and quickly forms an addiction. One day she…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Everything I Never Told You

  a Novel

  Ng, Celeste,

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  A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Everywhere You Don't Belong

  a Novel

  Bump, Gabriel,

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  A darkly funny and heartfelt debut novel about what it means to grow up young and black on the south side of Chicago when it feels like your choices are slim to none. Claude McKay Love is an average kid coping with abandonment, violence,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Good Country

  a Novel

  Khadivi, Laleh,

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  "Laguna Beach, California, 2009. Alireza Courdee, a fourteen-year-old straight-A student and chemistry whiz, takes his first hit of pot. In as long as it takes to inhale and exhale, he is transformed from the high-achieving son of Iranian…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Homeland Elegies

  a Novel

  Akhtar, Ayad,

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  A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• How Much of These Hills Is Gold

  Zhang, C Pam,

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  Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• How to Pronounce Knife

  Stories

  Thammavongsa, Souvankham, 1978-

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  "In her stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong. An ex-boxer…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• If Beale Street Could Talk

  a Novel

  Baldwin, James, 1924-1987

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  "In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Interior Chinatown

  Yu, Charles, 1976-

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  "From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play."-- Provided by publisher.

• Invisible Man

  Ellison, Ralph

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  "Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book…Read moreRead more of this annotation