25 Canadian books to read during Black History Month 2025 and beyond
February is Black History Month in Canada. Check out this list of buzzworthy titles of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by Black Canadian authors.
Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin
The Code Noir, or the Black Code, was a set of 59 articles decreed by Louis XVI in 1685 which regulated ownership of slaves in all French colonies. In her debut fiction work, Canisia Lubrin reflects on these codes to examine the legacy of enslavement and colonization — and the inherent power of Black resistance.
Lubrin is a Canadian writer, editor and academic who was born in St. Lucia and currently based in Whitby, Ont. Her debut poetry collection Voodoo Hypothesis was longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the Pat Lowther Award and was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award. Her poetry collection The Dyzgraphxst won the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. It also won the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Prize for poetry.
Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson
Blackheart Man is a fantasy novel about the magical island of Chynchin. It follows Veycosi who is training as a griot (historian and musician) and is hoping to score a spot on Chynchin's Colloquium of scholars. When children start disappearing and tar statues come to life, it's clear that sinister forces are at play — the demon called the Blackheart Man is causing trouble.
Nalo Hopkinson is the author of many novels and short stories, including Brown Girl in the Ring, which won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest and was defended on Canada Reads in 2008 by Jemeni. Her other books include Sister Mine, Midnight Robber, The Chaos, The New Moon's Arms and Skin Folk. In 2021, she won the Damon Knight Grand Master award, a lifetime achievement award for science fiction.
Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke
In the novel Broughtupsy, the death of her brother brings Akúa home to Jamaica after a decade. There, she struggles to reconnect with her estranged sister while they spread his ashes and revisit landmarks of their shared childhood. A chance meeting with a stripper named Jayda forces Akúa to reckon with her queerness, her homeland, her family and herself over two life-changing weeks.
Christina Cooke is a Jamaican Canadian writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner and Epiphany: A Literary Journal. She has won the Writers' Trust M&S Journey Prize and Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award. Broughtupsy is her debut novel.
Village Weavers by Myriam J. A. Chancy
Childhood friends Gertie and Sisi are extremely close, despite the socioeconomic differences that separate their daily lives in 1940s Port-au-Prince. An end-of-life secret tears their families apart in Village Weavers, and we follow the girls across the decades as Sisi moves to Paris and Gertie marries into a rich Dominican family — eventually both landing in the United States. A sudden phone call forces their lives back together, where they might finally be able to forgive and trust again.
Myriam J. A. Chancy is the author of four novels and four books of literary criticism. Her novel The Loneliness of Angels won the Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award in 2011 and was shortlisted for the 2011 OCM Bocas Prize in Caribbean Literature for fiction. Chancy was raised in Haiti and Canada and now resides in the United States. Her previous book, What Storm, What Thunder, was longlisted for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk
The Pages of the Sea tells the story of Wheeler and her older sisters on a Caribbean island after their mother moves to England to find work. As she waits for her mother to send for her, Wheeler feels alone and must navigate the tensions between her aunts who took her and her sisters in.
Anne Hawk is a writer who grew up in the Caribbean, the U.K. and Canada. The Pages of the Sea is her first novel. She previously worked as a journalist, paralegal and school teacher. She is currently based in London, England.
Black Boys Like Me by Matthew R. Morris
Black Boys Like Me is Matthew R. Morris' debut collection of eight essays that examines his experiences with race and identity throughout his childhood into his current work as an educator.
The child of a Black immigrant father and a white mother, Morris was influenced by the prominent Black male figures he saw in sports, TV shows and music as he was growing up in Scarborough, Ont. While striving for academic success, he confronted Black stereotypes and explored hip hop culture in the 1990s.
Morris is a writer, advocate and educator based in Toronto. As a public speaker, he has travelled across North America to educate on anti-racism in the education system. Morris was one of the readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize and was also named one of CBC Books' writers to watch in 2024.
What I Mean to Say by Ian Williams
Poet and Giller Prize winning author Ian Williams was the 2024 Massey lecturer. In What I Mean to Say, the Canadian writer and professor has chosen to focus on the topic of conversations — more specifically, our inability to have them in an age of increasing polarization, cancel culture and emerging forms of online communication.
Williams is the author of seven books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His novel, Reproduction, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He is a professor of English at the University of Toronto, director of the Creative Writing program and academic advisor for the Massey College William Southam Journalism Fellowship.
Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
In Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell revisits the lessons of his groundbreaking book The Tipping Point and reframes the subject of social epidemics in the current context. Using stories and research, Gladwell highlights a concerning form of social engineering and offers a guide to making sense of modern contagion.
Gladwell has written many nonfiction books including The Tipping Point, Blink, What the Dog Saw, David and Goliath, Talking to Strangers and The Bomber Mafia. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, a company that produces the podcast Revisionist History among others as well as audiobooks. Gladwell grew up in Elmira, Ont. and now lives in the U.S.
Salvage: Readings from the Wreck by Dionne Brand
Salvage blends autobiography and literary criticism to delve into Dionne Brand's experiences with colonial tropes in British and American literature and reassesses them in an anti-colonial light. Exploring narratives like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Austen's Mansfield Park, she searches for what remains in the wreckage of an empire.
Brand is a novelist, poet and filmmaker who has been creating in various mediums for over 40 years. She is a member of the Order of Canada and has won numerous awards, including the 1997 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry for the collection Land to Light On and the 2006 Toronto Book Award for the novel What We All Long For. Brand also won the 2019 Blue Metropolis Violet Literary Prize presented to an 2SLGBTQ+ writer for their body of work.
Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi
Scientific Marvel is a poetry collection that looks into the history of and current life in Winnipeg. With humour and surprise, it delves into deeper themes of racism, queerness and colonialism while keeping personal lived experiences close to the page.
Chimwemwe Undi is a Winnipeg-based poet, editor and lawyer. She was the Winnipeg Poet Laureate for 2023 and 2024. She won the 2022 John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards and her work can be found in Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature and BBC World, among others. Scientific Marvel won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.
In 2020, Undi was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Most recently, she was selected as Canada's 11th parliamentary poet laureate.
The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful
The Seventh Town of Ghosts explores these titular towns through songs that help readers grapple with the challenges of existence and independence. The book offers insight into the power of connection, tenderness and the human spirit.
Faith Arkorful has had her work published in Guts, Peach Mag, Prism International, Hobart, Without/pretend, The Puritan and Canthius, among others. She was a semi-finalist in the 2019 92Y Discovery Contest. Faith was born in Toronto, where she still resides. In 2020, she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize for Family Affair.
West of West Indian by Linzey Corridon
West of West Indian is a poetry collection that explores the Queer Caribbean experience, both the pain and pleasure, as an individual and a collective. It dives into themes of love and autonomy using language that is often used to unsettle queer life.
Linzey Corridon is a writer and educator. He was born in the Caribbean and he now lives in Canada.
Gamerville by Johnnie Christmas
In Gamerville, video gamer Max is sent to Camp Reset by his parents, forcing him to miss the championship of his favourite game. At Camp Reset, Max trades late night gaming sessions for group activities, sun and fresh air but he longs for the chance to take his shot at the Gamerville title. Devastated and frustrated, he plots his escape. As he invents ingenious ways to bend camp to his will, Max discovers that maybe the real world isn't so bad after all.
Christmas is a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator currently based in Vancouver. He previously illustrated Margaret Atwood's Angel Catbird and is the creator of Swim Team. In 2022, CBC Books named Christmas a writer to watch.
We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr
We Rip the World Apart tells the layered story of Kareela, a 24-year-old, biracial woman, who finds out she's pregnant and is struggling to find herself; her mother, Evelyn, who fled to Canada from Jamaica in the 1980s; and her paternal grandmother, Violet, who moved into their house after Kareela's brother was killed by the police.
Charlene Carr is a Toronto-raised writer and author based in Nova Scotia. She is the author of several independently published novels and a novella. Her first novel with a major publisher is Hold My Girl. She was named a writer to watch in 2023 by CBC Books.
The Beautiful Dream by Atiba Hutchinson, with Dan Robson
The Beautiful Dream is Canadian soccer player Atiba Hutchinson's memoir. It spans his childhood in a suburb of Brampton and how he became a member of Canada's national soccer team and the six-time winner of Canadian Men's Player of the Year award. The book shows how Hutchinson's own journey mirrors the progression of Canadian soccer and shows how a seemingly unattainable dream can get close to reach.
Hutchinson is the recently retired captain of the Canadian men's national soccer team. He currently lives in Turkey.
Dan Robson is a senior writer for The Athletic. His books include Quinn: The Life of a Hockey Legend, Bower: A Legendary Life and Measuring Up: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons. He co-authored Ignite: Unlock the Hidden Potential Within with Andre De Grasse.
Born to Walk by Alpha Nkuranga
Born to Walk is a memoir that details Alpha Nkuranga's story of resistance and survival. When she was eight, she and her younger brother ran from her grandparents' home in Rwanda in the midst of the civil war. They hid in a swamp until it was safe to leave and ended up joining a group of refugees fleeing to Tanzania. More than ten years later, Nkuranga moved to Canada and now works with women and children who face abuse and homelessness.
Nkuranga works for Women's Crisis Services in Kitchener, Ont. She fled Rwanda as an eight-year-old and lived in refugee camps in Tanzania and Uganda before arriving in Canada in 2010.
Pride and Joy by Louisa Onomé
In Pride and Joy, the titular Joy Okafor grapples with the pressure of planning a perfect 70th birthday for her mother, Mary. However, the celebrational weekend grinds to a halt when Mama Mary does not wake from a nap. With her Auntie Nancy staunchly believing that Mary will rise like Jesus on Easter Sunday, Joy must plan a funeral. The rest of the family throws open their doors to the Nigerian Canadian community and a television host, all while avoiding the true meaning of their loss.
Louisa Onomé is a Nigerian Canadian writer, whose most recent books include the YA novels Twice as Perfect and The Melancholy of Summer. She lives in the Toronto area.
Unlike the Rest by Chika Stacy Oriuwa
Unlike the Rest charts how Chika Stacy Oriuwa's realized her dream of being a doctor — and the systemic discrimination she faced as the only Black student in her medical school class of 259 students at the University of Toronto. She vividly describes what it's like to train in the hospital, have doubts and familial pressure to achieve success and become an advocate for change.
Oriuwa is a psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto. She was named one of Time magazine's 2021 Next Generation Leaders and was on Maclean's Power 50 list in 2022. She has been on multiple boards and is an advocate for creating spaces of wellness and inclusion.
Perfect Little Angels by Vincent Anioke
Perfect Little Angels is a short story collection set mostly in Nigeria, pondering questions of expectation, desire and duty among its various characters. From boarding school tensions to secret rendezvous between lovers in a hill, the stories explore masculinity, religion, othering, queerness, love and self-expression.
Vincent Anioke was born and raised in Nigeria and now lives in Waterloo. Ont. He has been a finalist for the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and won the Austin Clarke Fiction Prize in 2021. His work has been featured in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Rumpus, The Masters Review and Passages North. CBC Books named Anioke as one of the 2024 writers to watch.
Anioke's short story Leave A Funny Message At The Beep was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize. His story Utopia was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize twice, in 2021 and 2023.
Blackness Is a Gift I Can Give Her by R. Renee Hess
In Blackness Is a Gift I Can Give Her, founder of Black Girl Hockey Club R. Renee Hess writes essays about representation and stereotypes in the game she loves. She shares how she developed a love for hockey and her own perspectives on the game as well as research and anecdotes from players, executives, fans and media who are shaping its future.
Hess is the founder of the Black Girl Hockey Club and works in community engagement for La Sierra University. She was a finalist for the NHL's Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award in 2021. Her work has been featured in Black Nerd Problems, Spectrum Magazine and Racebaitr.
The War You Don't Hate by Blaise Ndala, translated by Dimitri Nasrallah
As Montreal documentary filmmaker Véronique Quesnel accepts awards and praise for her telling of Sona's story, a young woman who escaped sex slavery, danger emerges. Across the ocean, on the other side of The War You Don't Hate, Master Corporal Red Ant and his cousin Baby Che are on a mission for truth and vengeance after the Second Congo War and they've set their sights on Véronique.
Blaise Ndala is the Ottawa-based Congolese Canadian author of the novels J'irai danser sur la tombe de Senghor, which won the Ottawa Book Prize in the French Fiction category and Sans capote ni kalachnikov, winner of the 2019 edition of the Combat national des livres.
Dimitri Nasrallah is the author of four novels. His most recent book Hotline, was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and championed by bhangra dancer Gurdeep Pandher on Canada Reads 2023. Nasrallah was born in Lebanon in 1977 and moved to Canada in 1988. His previous books include The Bleeds, Niko and Blackbodying.
Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
In a world ravaged by the risen Atlantic ocean off the West African coast, survivors live in five towers that sit partially submerged in the sea. Lost Ark Dreaming draws together three characters at various tower levels: Yeneki, a mid-level analyst; Tuoyo, a mechanic beneath the water level; and Ngozi, a bureaucrat at the peak. They must work together to save the future of their world, especially from those who perished in the Atlantic, reawakened by a mystical power in search of revenge.
Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a Nigerian writer of African speculative fiction. His other work includes the novels David Mogo Godhunter and Son of the Storm. He was a contributing writer for Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda.
Subterrane by Valérie Bah
In Subterrane, Zeynab is working on a documentary on the margins of New Stockholm, a North American city. Cipher Falls is a polluted, industrial wasteland where artists and anti-capitalists are forced to work dead-end jobs to survive. Zeynab focuses her documentary on Doudou Laguerre, an activist who mysteriously died — and the potential that his death had something to do with his dissent against a construction project.
Valérie Bah is an artist, filmmaker, documentarian, photographer and writer based in Quebec. Their collection The Rage Letters was translated from French by Kama La Mackerel. Subterrane is their first novel in English.
Naniki by Oonya Kempadoo
The novel Naniki, or active spirits, allow shape-shifting sea beings Amana and Skelele to travel the Caribbean towards a strange, dreamed future. Devastation sends the pair back through time in this historical, magical realist novel in order to save their islands, seas and each other.
Oonya Kempadoo is a Grenadian English Guyanese author who lives in Montreal.
My Fighting Family by Morgan Campbell
My Fighting Family is a detailed history of one family's battles across the generations and reckons with what it means being a Black Canadian with strong American roots. Sports journalist and writer Morgan Campbell traces his family's roots in the rural American south to their eventual cross-border split and the grudges and squabbles along the way.
From the South Side of Chicago in the 1930s to the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and Campbell's life dealing with the racial tensions in Canada — My Fighting Family is about journeying to find clarity in conflict.
Campbell is an Ontario-based journalist and a senior contributor at CBC Sports. He was a journalist at the Toronto Star for over 18 years. His work highlights where sports intersect with off-the-field issues like race, culture, politics and business. His memoir My Fighting Family is his first book.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians, check out CBC's Being Black in Canada. You can read more stories here.
