Best African-American Fiction 2009 by E. Lynn Harris, Gerald Early (Editor)

From the Publisher

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.

From 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.

Here 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.

Masterful and engaging, this first volume of Best African American Fiction features stories you’ll want to savor, share, and return to again and again.


Please click the "Behind the Book" link for contributor’s bios.

Publishers Weekly

There hasn't been an anthology of such talented African-American literary figures since Marita Golden's Gumbo, and the result is a masterful bouquet of literary flowers, some grand, some subtle, but none shrinking. Striking among the collection is "Cell One," Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's (Half of a Yellow Sun) cautionary tale of what happens when success and ambition outpace discipline and firm-handedness in child-rearing in Nigeria. The son of a professor and his accommodating wife, Nnamabia is titillated by thug life, and it isn't until he's arrested and observes the blatant disrespect toward a sick elder that he remembers the good sense his parents instilled long ago. In "This Kind of Red," Helen Lee (Water Marked) tells of a battered woman who copes by counting everything from crayons to the minutes she has to kill her abusive husband. Mat Johnson (Drop) offers an excerpt from The Great Negro Plot, his novel infused with the history of slavery and indentured servitude in colonial New York. With something for every reader's taste, this is a collection not to be missed. (Jan.)

Josh Cohen - Library Journal

African American fiction has come a long way from the days of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, and its wealth and variety are recognized in this first in an annual series. The volume includes both short stories and excerpts from adult and YA fiction written in 2007. The six short stories show a diversity of themes and locales. Chris Abani's "The White Albatross" combines the jazz milieu with a search for a mother, while Tiphanie Yanique's "The Saving Work" deals with two mothers on a Caribbean island watching a church burn down. Amina Gautier's "Dance for Me," about a minority girl's alienation and eventual acceptance of a sort at a white private school, fits nicely with Emily Rabotea's "Orb Weaver," about a young African American woman's experience at a writers' conference. The four excerpted novels include Junot Díaz's popular The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and cult author Samuel Delany's Dark Reflections. The inclusion of YA fiction-there's a selection, for instance, from Walter Dean Myers's Harlem Summer, about a meeting with Fats Waller and Dutch Schultz-brings another dimension to this volume. A good addition for large public and academic libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

The expansive criteria in terms of authors, genres and publication dates (2006-09) makes for a treasure trove of discovery in this volume, though it doesn't hold together as well as so many other best-of anthologies. Readers across racial lines will find reason for delight in this debut of what is intended as an annual series, which mixes short stories with novel selections and young-adult fiction, and writers as acclaimed as Junot D'az (typically categorized as Dominican-American) and as little known as L.F. Haines (whose selection from the young-adult work Up For It: A Tale of the Underground Respiration does not credit a publisher). A taste of D'az's virtuosic, award-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao will likely leave readers hungry for the whole novel, while the Haines selection-with its gang warfare, drug house, references to Coltrane and Mingus and footnotes longer than David Foster Wallace's-must qualify as young-adult fiction mainly on the basis of its 15-year-old protagonist. Too many of the novel selections which dominate these pages start in the middle of things, with the reader lacking context of character. A half-dozen self-contained stories open the volume, with settings that range from the Caribbean ("The Saving Work" by Tiphanie Yanique) to Nigeria ("Cell One" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), and approaches from the metafictional ("Orb Weaver" by Emily Raboteau) to the first-person confessional ("This Kind of Red" by Helen Elaine Lee). A short introduction by Early provides perspective on African-American fiction, and another by guest editor Harris focuses on the selections. Lacking cohesiveness, this will likely lead the curious reader to other books.

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