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Chimamanda’s top five books on black history

By Omiko Awa
28 February 2021   |   3:44 am
To wrap up the celebration of Black History Month (celebrated yearly in February), Amazon Books reached out to one of the world’s most outstanding writers, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to share her recommended books.

To wrap up the celebration of Black History Month (celebrated yearly in February), Amazon Books reached out to one of the world’s most outstanding writers, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to share her recommended books.

Chimamanda who is both a fantastic speaker and the award-winning author, shared five books that “had a tremendous impact” on her.

According to Amazon Book Review, “these books can and should be read year-round”. Top of Chimamanda’s list is Carol Anderson’s White Rage that tells profound truths (embedded with facts) about structural racism especially in the United States. On the Courthouse Lawn by Sherrilyn A. Ifill is an eye-opener that reveals what you did not know about the barbaric act of lynching. Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is a classic on how African-Americans migrated from the South to the North in attempts of absconding racism.

A ruthlessly candid memoir, in Negroland by Margo Jefferson, we see a splendid woman manoeuvres through the world of Black aristocracy though restricted by racism. The in-depth story of a black woman both on political and social fronts, Ann Petry’s The Street was set in Harlem around the 1940s.

Although she didn’t include it on her list, Chimamanda’s Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award is one book that has been on many recommended lists around the world for books that address race including Forbes’ 20-book list of ‘A Reading on Race in America’.

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