Know They Exist

Know They Exist: Discovering (and rediscovering) fiction novels featuring people of color.

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Clotel aka The President's Daughter

William Wells Brown

ISBN 0142437727 

First published in December 1853, Clotel was written amid then unconfirmed rumors that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with one of his slaves. The story begins with the auction of his mistress, here called Currer, and their two daughters, Clotel and Althesa. The Virginian who buys Clotel falls in love with her, gets her pregnant, seems to promise marriage—then sells her. Escaping from the slave dealer, Clotel returns to Virginia disguised as a white man in order to rescue her daughter, Mary, a slave in her father’s house. A fast-paced and harrowing tale of slavery and freedom, of the hypocrisies of a nation founded on democratic principles, Clotel is more than a sensationalist novel. It is a founding text of the African American novelistic tradition, a brilliantly composed and richly detailed exploration of human relations in a new world in which race is a cultural construct.

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Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen

Marilyn Chin

ISBN 0393331458 

An uproarious debut that lays bare the complicated generational relationships of Chinese American women.  Raucous twin sisters Moonie and Mei Ling Wong are known as the “double happiness” Chinese food delivery girls. Each day they load up a “crappy donkey-van” and deliver Americanized (“bad”) Chinese food to homes throughout their southern California neighborhood. United in their desire to blossom into somebodies, the Wong girls fearlessly assert their intellect and sexuality, even as they come of age under the care of their dominating, cleaver-wielding grandmother from Hong Kong. They transform themselves from food delivery girls into accomplished women, but along the way they wrestle with the influence and continuity of their Chinese heritage. Marilyn Chin’s prose waxes and wanes between satire and metaphorical lyric, referencing classical Chinese tales and ghost stories that are at turns sensual, lurid, hilarious, shocking, and surreal. 

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The Norton Anthology of African American Literature

Nellie Y. McKay

ISBN 0393977781 

Welcomed on publication as "brilliant, definitive, and a joy to teach from," The Norton Anthology of African American Literature was adopted at more than 1,275 colleges and universities worldwide. Now, the new Second Edition offers these highlights. This landmark anthology includes the work of 120 writers over two centuries, from the earliest known work by an African American, Lucy Terry's poem "Bars Fight, " to the fiction of the Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and the poems of the U.S. Poet Laureate, Rita Dove.

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The Abandoned, Volume 1 (The Abandoned #1)

Ross Campbell

ISBN 1598164341

Everyone 23 and older suddenly dies one fateful, stormy night, but quickly rises from the dead. The zombies seek out the only living thing left: their children. After Rylie escapes a nursing home, she makes her way through the swamps of her hometown to find her crush, Naomi, before the dead find her first. Rated for older teens.

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Updating in 2014 - We're Back:)

Hi! Thanks for the supportive emails. I will start updating Know They Exist again in 2014.

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On Sal Mal Lane

Ru Freeman

ISBN 1555976425 

On the day the Herath family moves in, Sal Mal Lane is still a quiet street, disturbed only by the cries of the children whose triumphs and tragedies sustain the families that live there. As the neighbors adapt to the newcomers in different ways, the children fill their days with cricket matches, romantic crushes, and small rivalries. But the tremors of civil war are mounting, and the conflict threatens to engulf them all.       In a heartrending novel poised between the past and the future, the innocence of the children—a beloved sister and her overprotective siblings, a rejected son and his twin sisters, two very different brothers—contrasts sharply with the petty prejudices of the adults charged with their care. In Ru Freeman’s masterful hands, On Sal Mal Lane, a story of what was lost to a country and her people, becomes a resounding cry for reconciliation.

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Flowers in the Sky

Lynn Joseph

ISBN 0060297948 

Fifteen-year-old Nina Perez is faced with a future she never expected. She must leave her Garden of Eden, her lush home in the Dominican Republic, when she's sent by her mother to seek out a better life with her brother in New York. As Nina searches for some glimpse of familiarity amid the jarring world of Washington Heights, she must uncover her own strength. She learns to uncover roots within foreign soil and finds a way to grow, just like the orchids that blossom on her fire escape. And when she is confronted by ugly secrets about her brother's business, she comes to understand the realities of life in this new place. But then she meets him-that green-eyed boy- who she can't erase from her thoughts, the one who just might help her learn to see beauty in spite of tragedy. From the acclaimed author of The Color of My Words comes a powerful story about a young girl who must make her way in a new world and find her place within it.

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The Queen's Gambit

Ikenna Emmanuel Ezuma

ISBN 1477587586 

The Queen’s Gambit is an epic story set in the early times when the Benin Kingdom reigned supreme between the South-South and the South-West regions of Nigeria. In this tragic tale, the timeless conflict between the forces of good and of evil plays out when a man, overcome by blind ambition, allows greed to possess his will and in the process, desecrates the land. But unknown to the people, beyond their borders, far across the great river and in a foreign land, lies the only hope of the kingdom.... Like a fast-paced movie, this compelling story, packed with unsuspecting twists and intriguing suspense and richly spiced with interesting African proverbs, brings to life the rich cultural depths of the famous ancient Benin kingdom and is sure to hold you spell bound from the very first flip of the page. It is a promise!

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Revenge 

Yoko Ogawa

Sinister forces draw together a cast of desperate characters in this eerie and absorbing novel from Yoko Ogawa. An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. Years later, the writer’s stepson reflects upon his stepmother and the strange stories she used to tell him. Meanwhile, a surgeon’s lover vows to kill him if he does not leave his wife. Before she can follow-through on her crime of passion, though, the surgeon will cross paths with another remarkable woman, a cabaret singer whose heart beats delicately outside of her body. But when the surgeon promises to repair her condition, he sparks the jealousy of another man who would like to preserve the heart in a custom tailored bag. Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders—their fates converge in a darkly beautiful web that they are each powerless to escape. Macabre, fiendishly clever, and with a touch of the supernatural, Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge creates a haunting tapestry of death—and the afterlife of the living.

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We Need New Names: A Novel

NoViolet Bulawayo

ISBN 0316230812 

Release Date: May 21, 2013

Darling is only 10 years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad. But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Zadie Smith to Monica Ali to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.

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Hooked (Hooked #1)

Liz Fichera

ISBN 9781460893470

When Native American Fredricka ‘Fred’ Oday is invited to become the only girl on the school’s golf team, she can’t say no. This is an opportunity to shine, win a scholarship and go to university, something no one in her family has done.  But Fred’s presence on the team isn’t exactly welcome — especially not to rich golden boy Ryan Berenger, whose best friend was kicked off the team to make a spot for Fred. But there’s no denying that things are happening between the girl with the killer swing and the boy with the killer smile...

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Luther: The Calling (Luther #1)

Neil Cross

ISBN 0857203371 

Luther: The Calling, by Neil Cross, is the first of three tie-in novels based on the BBC crime drama Luther,starring Idris Elba. 

Meet DCI John Luther. He's brilliant. He's intense. He's obsessional. He's dangerous. DCI John Luther has an extraordinary clearance rate. He commands outstanding loyalty from friends and colleagues. Nobody who ever stood at his side has a bad word to say about him. But Luther seethes with a hidden fury that at times he can barely control. Sometimes it sends him to the brink of madness, making him do things he shouldn't; things way beyond the limits of the law.

The Calling is the story of the case that tore his personal and professional relationships apart and propelled him over the precipice. Beyond fury, beyond vengeance. All the way to murder…

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Ghana Must Go

Taiye Selasi 

ISBN 1594204497 

Kweku Sai is dead. A renowned surgeon and failed husband, he succumbs suddenly at dawn outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of Kweku’s death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family he abandoned years before. Ghana Must Go is their story. Electric, exhilarating, beautifully crafted, Ghana Must Go is a testament to the transformative power of unconditional love, from a debut novelist of extraordinary talent.   Moving with great elegance through time and place, Ghana Must Gocharts the Sais’ circuitous journey to one another. In the wake of Kweku’s death, his children gather in Ghana at their enigmatic mother’s new home. The eldest son and his wife; the mysterious, beautiful twins; the baby sister, now a young woman: each carries secrets of his own. What is revealed in their coming together is the story of how they came apart: the hearts broken, the lies told, the crimes committed in the name of love. Splintered, alone, each navigates his pain, believing that what has been lost can never be recovered—until, in Ghana, a new way forward, a new family, begins to emerge. Ghana Must Go is at once a portrait of a modern family, and an exploration of the importance of where we come from to who we are. In a sweeping narrative that takes us from Accra to Lagos to London to New York, Ghana Must Go teaches that the truths we speak can heal the wounds we hide.

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The Wild Geese

Ōgai Mori

ISBN 0804810702 

First published in serial form, The Wild Geese is the story of unfulfilled love set against a background of social change. Ogai portrays with compassion and beauty the drama of a girl forced by poverty to become a moneylender's mistress. Around her, in scenes of humor and pathos, move the skillfully drawn characters of her weak-willed father, her lover and his suspicious wife, and a handsome student who is both the object of her desire and the symbol of her rescue.

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Maggie the Mechanic: A Love and Rockets Book (Love and Rockets: Locas #1)

Jaime Hernández

ISBN 1845765206 

Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2007, Love and Rockets will finally be released in its most accessible form yet: as a series of compact, thick, affordable, mass-market volumes that present the whole story in perfect chronological order.

The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the first of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie, her annoying best friend and sometime lover Hopey, and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy—as well as the wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie's handsome love interest, Rand Race. 

Maggie the Mechanic collects the earliest, punkiest, most heavily sci-fi stories of Maggie and her circle of friends, and you can see the artist (who drew like an angel from the very first panel) refine his approach: Despite these strong shifts in tone, the stunning art and razor sharp characterizations keep this collection consistent, and enthralling throughout. (Note: A number of these stories were not collected in the hardcover Locas.

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Snow Hunters

Paul Yoon

ISBN 1476714819 

In this elegant, haunting, and highly anticipated debut novel from 5 Under 35 National Book Foundation honoree Paul Yoon, a North Korean war refugee confronts the wreckage of his past. With spare, evocative prose, Snow Hunters traces the extraordinary journey of Yohan, who defects from his country at the end of the war, leaving his friends and family behind to seek a new life in a port town on the coast of Brazil. Though he is a stranger in a strange land, throughout the years in this town, four people slip in and out of Yohan’s life: Kiyoshi, the Japanese tailor for whom he works, and who has his own secrets and a past he does not speak of; Peixe, the groundskeeper at the town church; and two vagrant children named Santi and Bia, a boy and a girl, who spend their days in the alleyways and the streets of the town. Yohan longs to connect with these people, but to do so he must sift through his traumatic past so he might let go and move on. In Snow Hunters, Yoon proves that love can dissolve loneliness; that hope can wipe away despair; and that a man who has lost a country can find a new home. This is a heartrending story of second chances, told with unerring elegance and absolute tenderness.

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Steamfunk

Balogun Ojetade, Milton J. Davis 

  ASIN B00BJ64P0K 

A witch, more machine than human, judges the character of the wicked and hands out justice in a ravaged Chicago. John Henry wields his mighty hammers in a war against machines and the undead. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman rule a country of freed slaves that rivals – and often bests – England and France in power and technology. You will find all this – and much more – between the pages of Steamfunk, an anthology of incredible stories by some of today’s greatest authors of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Steamfunk – African and African American-inspired Steampunk. Editors Milton Davis and Balogun Ojetade have put together a masterful work guaranteed to transport you to new worlds. Worlds of adventure; of terror; of war and wonder; of iron and steam.