Celebrating Black History Month by Spotlighting Influential Black Authors
From famous names like Audre Lorde, to UTM’s own Andrea Thompson, Black authors have had a massive, positive impact on society that needs to be appreciated.
With Black History Month approaching, it’s time to shine a light on some authors of colour who’ve been wildly influential through their works.
Audre Lorde and bell hooks are two prolific Black authors, who are mainly known for speaking out about the intersectionality of race with sexuality, gender, religion, politics, etc. Lorde described herself as a “Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet.” She worked as a professor of English at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She wrote a lot of poetry, including “A Litany for Survival”, whose main theme is fear amongst marginalized communities, and their resilience. She also wrote more than a dozen books, all a mix of creative writing, poetry collections, and nonfiction. The Cancer Journals is written as a diary, following Lorde’s life as she battles with breast cancer and how that experience tied into other social/societal aspects of her life. Sister Outsider is a collection of essays that touch on the intersectionality sectors above, and calls for solidarity amongst them.
bell hooks is a pen name used by author Gloria Jean Watkins. The lowercase of her name is a significant stylistic choice, as her goal was to take attention away from her name so that it could be shifted and focused on her message. hooks was also a professor, working at Ivy League institutions like Stanford University and Yale University, teaching English. She published over 30 books, ranging from children’s books to adult novels. One of hooks children’s stories is called, Happy to be Nappy, and it is centered around appreciating the natural texture of Black hair, encouraging self-love. Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women in Feminism is one of hooks adult, nonfiction novels. In it, she explores the intersectionality of sexism and racism throughout history, especially focusing on how slavery put Black women at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, and how certain stereotypes persist to this day.
Desmond Cole is a Black Toronto author who has spoken out a lot about racial discrimination and systemic racism in the last decade. Earlier in his career he wrote articles for The Toronto Star, The Walrus, and Buzzfeed. In 2017, CBC Television released a documentary called The Skin We’re In, which starred Cole as it was based on his 2015 award-winning essay of the same name. In 2020, Cole released his first novel,The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power, which detailed a year of his life living as a Black man fighting against racism in Canada. It became one of Canada’s bestselling nonfiction novels that year.
One of UTM’s own, Prof Andrea Thompson, (who teaches ENG373) is a woman of colour and an accomplished poet/writer. She has had many poems published in various anthologies, including Best Canadian Poetry: 2020, as well as published critical essays on spoken word poetry. Thompson has been nominated for multiple poetry awards, and she won the 2021 Pavlick Poetry Prize. Some of Thompson’s work, including Over our heads and A selected history of soul speak, is available at the UTM library, and at the U of T St. George campus libraries. Her most recent publication, The Good Word, is an album of spoken word poetry that centers around Black history, and how it intermingles with faith, love, and cultural identity.
