Reading path
The Colour Line
A literature forged in fire. Voices writing against erasure, against empire, against the lie that some lives matter less than others. These are writers who built entire worlds out of what was taken from them, and in doing so created some of the most powerful, luminous work in any language. Urgent, essential, and long overdue at the centre of the conversation.
In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.
The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.
The route
- 1. The Negro Speaks of RiversLangston Hughes, 1921
- 2. Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston, 1937
- 3. Notebook of a Return to the Native LandAimé Césaire, 1939
- 4. Native SonRichard Wright, 1940
- 5. Invisible ManRalph Ellison, 1952
- 6. Go Tell It on the MountainJames Baldwin, 1953
- 7. Notes of a Native SonJames Baldwin, 1955
- 8. Sonny's BluesJames Baldwin, 1957
- 9. Things Fall ApartChinua Achebe, 1958
- 10. A Raisin in the SunLorraine Hansberry, 1959
- 11. I Have a DreamMartin Luther King Jr., 1963
- 12. Season of Migration to the NorthTayeb Salih, 1966
- 13. Death and the King's HorsemanWole Soyinka, 1975
- 14. Song of SolomonToni Morrison, 1977
- 15. BelovedToni Morrison, 1987
- 16. OmerosDerek Walcott, 1990
- 17. KindredOctavia E. Butler, 1979
- 18. Arrow of GodChinua Achebe, 1964
- 19. Cry, the Beloved CountryAlan Paton, 1948
- 20. AmericanahChimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2013
- 21. Black BoyRichard Wright, 1945
- 22. The Autobiography of Malcolm XAlex Haley, 1965
- 23. The Color PurpleAlice Walker, 1982
- 24. Another CountryJames Baldwin, 1962
- 25. The Joys Of MotherhoodBuchi Emecheta, 1979
- 26. Half of a Yellow SunChimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2006
- 27. The Labyrinth of SolitudeOctavio Paz, 1950
- 28. Tent of MiraclesJorge Amado, 1969
- 29. Ambiguous AdventureCheikh Hamidou Kane, 1961
- 30. ChakaThomas Mofolo, 1925
- 31. Down Second AvenueEs'kia Mphahlele, 1959
- 32. Femme noire (Black Woman)Léopold Sédar Senghor, 1945
- 33. God's Bits of WoodOusmane Sembène, 1960
- 34. Long Walk To FreedomNelson Mandela, 1994
- 35. So Long a LetterMariama Bâ, 1980
- 36. Sóngoro cosongoNicolás Guillén, 1931
- 37. The Lonely LondonersSam Selvon, 1956
- 38. Annie JohnJamaica Kincaid, 1985
- 39. Up from SlaveryBooker T. Washington, 1901
- 40. Of Our Spiritual StrivingsW.E.B. Du Bois, 1903
- 41. Why We Can't WaitMartin Luther King, 1964
- 42. Narrative of the Life of Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass, 1845
- 43. I Know Why the Caged Bird SingsMaya Angelou, 1969
- 44. A Grain Of WheatNgũgĩ wa Thiong’o, 1967