Arts and culture writer
Minna Salami is a Nigerian, Finnish and Swedish writer, lecturer and the founder of the award-winning blog MsAfropolitan. Her debut essay collection, Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone, challenges the Eurocentric, patriarchal ways of thinking that have had a chokehold on our world for centuries.
A Phoenix First Must Burn is a Young Adult speculative fiction anthology of short stories written by black women and gender-nonconforming writers. It is edited by Patrice Caldwell and features “sixteen tales that explore the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction and magic, coming together in one spellbinding narrative of bravery, beauty and hope.” The…
From a Jehovah’s Witness in the Black Country to a sex worker in London, Paul Mendez’s semi-autobiographical novel Rainbow Milk is unlike the coming-of-age stories you’ve previously read.
A year ago, I was complaining to someone that there weren’t enough books by and about Trinidadian people (and West Indian people more broadly) in British bookshops. A few months later, I received a copy of Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud and it was exactly the kind of book I’d been craving.
This Lovely City is the latest novel to highlight the experiences of the Windrush generation in London. Part-love story, part-mystery, Louise Hare’s stunning historical debut is undoubtedly one of my must-read books of 2020.
Take It Back by Kia Abdullah is a legal thriller that tells the story of a white disabled teenager who accuses four Muslim boys of raping her. Who is telling the truth?
“Feminist, man-hating filth.” This is the cover quote that prompted me to read Foul Is Fair. Any book that is described in this way is one I should be reading, right?
I’ve always sensed that Britain is racist. Discovering the extent of that racism, mainly by learning about this country’s violent colonial past and involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, has disturbed and angered me immensely. The wilder and more violent Britain’s treatment of Black people becomes, the more I doubt it will change.