By Lisa Gooding
The theme of this year’s Black History Month is ‘Saluting our Sisters’ and highlights the crucial role that Black women have played in shaping history, inspiring change and building communities.
I have been incredibly lucky to have worked with some of the most inspiring Black women writers over the years in my career in publishing. Looking after the campaign for Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and touring with Morrison on one of her rare visits to the UK back in 2008 was definitely the highlight of my career. I have loved her novels since childhood and also penned my dissertation on her work. It was incredibly moving to see the impact Morrison’s novels have on readers at her events and the deep sadness that was felt upon her death. Morrison was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and if you have yet to read any of her seminal works, I would suggest starting with The Bluest Eye (her debut) – a harrowing, impactful debut following an African American girl and her descent into insanity and delusion due to the Eurocentric beauty standards of the 1940s and the abuse of her alcoholic father. Other works to prioritise diving into include Sula, Song of Solomon or Beloved (one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century).
I love Diana Evans’ novels and worked with her at Vintage when we published The Wonder. Evans is an exquisite writer and her most recent novel, A House for Alice, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She has been praised for skilfully intertwining ‘the public and the private, the momentous and the mundane’. A House for Alice is a powerful and moving novel about Black British Londoners set in the wake of the Grenfell Tragedy. You can read a brilliant interview with Evans here, in conversation with another wonderful author Sara Collins, who penned the gothic page-turner The Confessions of Frannie Langton, a beautiful and haunting tale about one woman’s fight to tell her story that has been turned in to a TV series of the same name.
Some of my other favourite novels of recent years are Leila Mottley’s Nightcrawling and The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet. Nightcrawling is such an assured debut that it is hard to believe Mottley was a teenager when she wrote it. She writes with a beautiful cadence about siblings Kiara and Marcus, who are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex in contemporary California. The novel is inspired by a major sexual misconduct case in the Oakland Police Department and is an utterly brilliant and bruising read.
The Vanishing Half is a compelling novel about identical twin sisters Desiree and Estelle ‘Stella’ Vignes. As adults, one sister lives in the same southern town she once tried to escape while the other moved far away and passes for white, a secret she even keeps from her husband. It is a thought-provoking and beautifully written meditation on race and identity.
A non-fiction book I would recommend for anyone considering parenthood, those about to give birth and for postpartum and beyond is The Birth Debrief by midwife, birth debrief facilitator and author Illiyin Morrison. I wish Illiyin’s book had been available when I gave birth and, reading it seven years postpartum, I still found useful advice and insights in the book. It is such an empowering read. Illiyin is also a passionate advocate for racial equity in childbirth. You can follow her on @mixing.up.motherhood and she has recently launched her own podcast too.
Two exciting novels we have coming up with VERVE are Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison in August 2024 and The Rest of You by Maame Blue in autumn 2024. Blue Hour is a fearless and timely debut, that examines motherhood in the midst of uncertainty, buried trauma and an unravelling America, delving into complex, topical issues from grief and miscarriage to interracial relationships and police brutality. Barack Obama recently named Blue Hour as one of his Summer Reading Selections. The Rest of You is a propulsive and unforgettable novel about healing from trauma and what it means to be Black British, set between today’s London and mid-90s Ghana. It is also a celebration of strong friendships and familial connections, and the journey of heritage and discovery. I can’t wait for us to bring these powerful novels to readers.