"One of the most acclaimed artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston was a gifted novelist, playwright, and essayist. Drawn from three decades of her work, this anthology showcases her development as a writer, from her early pieces expounding on the beauty and precision of African American art to some of her final published works, covering the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing a white...

"A collection of stories explores the hardscrabble lives, passionate loves, and quirky human connections experienced by diverse protagonists, including a woman who pretends she does not know that her husband and his identical twin switch places with each other."--

A powerful, timely debut, The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family. The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the...

"Sisters Matilde, Pastora, Camila, and Flor thought they knew each other well, until Flor--inspired by a documentary her daughter Ona made her watch--decides she wants a living wake, a party to bring her family and community together and celebrate the long life she's led, while she's still around to enjoy it. She's not ill, as far as anybody knows, but Flor does have a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. Has she foreseen her...

"Originally published in 1979, this reissued classic is a collection of Zora Neale Hurston's finest works, edited by Alice Walker. This anthology was the first to collect the works of Hurston, who was one of the most prolific writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and includes fiction, folklore, reportage, and personal essays"--

"Solemn Redvine is a precocious Mississippi girl who senses a nearby baby may be her half-sibling: the outcome of her father's mistakes with a married woman who lives in their trailer park. After Solemn witnesses a man throw the baby down a community well, she struggles to understand the event, leaving her forever changed. As Solemn finds refuge in fantasies of stardom as well as friendships with her brother's wife and a nearby girl, the ill-fated...

"He came on stage in a coffin, carried by pallbearers, drunk enough to climb into his casket every night. Onstage he wore a cape, clamped a bone to his nose, and carried a staff topped with a human skull. Offstage, he insisted he'd been raised by a tribeof Blackfoot Indians, that he'd joined the army at fourteen, that he'd defeated the middleweight boxing champion of Alaska, that he'd fathered seventy-five illegitimate children. The R&B wildman Screamin'...

Jabari Asim's debut novel returns readers to Gateway City, the fictional Midwestern city first explored in his acclaimed short story collection, Taste of Honey. Against a 1970s backdrop of rapid social and political change, Only the Strong portrays the challenges and rewards of love in a quintessential American community, where heartbreak and violence are seldom far away. Moved by the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Lorenzo "Guts" Tolliver decides...

In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock--the "Widow of the South"-- has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee. But when her ambitious, politically-minded grown son, Theopolis, is murdered, Mariah--no stranger to loss--finds her world once more breaking apart. How could this happen? Who wanted him dead? Mariah's journey to uncover the truth leads her to unexpected...

"This lean, raw, and surprising debut is a deeply moving and powerful story of Moses, a nine-year-old survivor of the harsh streets of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Moses longs for something outside the grim existence he has known. He and his friend Kioso hitch a ride out of the city on the back of a truck only to find themselves in the wilderness where their street wisdom no longer helps them as they encounter poisonous snakes, cruel jungle travelers,...