Thumper’s Top 100 African American Novels

Thumper’s Top 100 African American Novels & Top 25 African American Authors of the 20th Century

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Top 100 Novels (In No Particular Order)

Native Son – Richard Wright
Roots – Alex Haley
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Go Tell It On The Mountain – James Baldwin
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
Jonah’s Gourd Vine – Zora Neale Hurston
Dust Tracks On The Road – Zora Neale Hurston
The Ways Of White Folks – Langston Hughes
The Best Of Simple – Langston Hughes
The Big Sea – Langston Hughes
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
The Third Life Of Grange Copeland – Alice Walker
Possessing The Secret Of Joy – Alice Walker
The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
Of Love And Dust – Ernest Gaines
A Gathering Of Old Men – Ernest Gaines
A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest Gaines
Ugly Ways – Tina McElroy Ansa
Song Of Solomon – Toni Morrison
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Paradise – Toni Morrison
Jazz – Toni Morrison
Sula – Toni Morrison
Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine – Bebe Moore Campbell
The Chinaberry Tree – Jessie Redmon Fauset
Passing – Nella Larsen
Blacker The Berry – Wallace Thurman
Infant Of The Spring – Wallace Thurman
Cane – Jean Toomer
Corrediga – Gayl Jones
Black Boy – Richard Wright
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Middle Passage – Charles Johnson
Oxherding Tale – Charles Johnson
The Living Is Easy – Dorothy West
The Street – Ann Petry
The Spook Who Sat By The Door – Sam Greenlee
The School on 103rd Street – Roland S. Jefferson
Yesterday Will Make You Cry – Chester Himes
Billy – Albert French
Holly – Albert French
The Chartersville Incident – David Bradley
Black Thunder – Arna Bontemps
Manchild In The Promise Land – Clarence Brown
Plum Bun – Jessie Redmon Fauset
Push – Sapphire
The View From Here – Brian Keith Jackson
Black Betty – Walter Mosley
Gone Fishin’ – Walter Mosley
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo – Ntozake Shange
The Wedding – Dorothy West
Touch – Charlotte Watson Sherman
An Open Weave – Devorah Major
Disappearing Act – Terry McMillan
Train Whistle Guitar – Albert Murray
When Death Comes A Stealing – Valerie Wilson Wesley
Pride – Lorene Carey
Sister, Sister – Eric Jerome Dickey
Make Me Wanna Holler – Nathan McCall
Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography – Donald Bogle
Playing In The Dark – Toni Morrison
I Been In Sorrow’s Kitchen And Licked Out All The Pots – Susan Straight
The Color Of Love – Sandra Kitt
Divided Soul: The Life And Times Of Marvin Gaye – David Ritz
Bessie – Chris Albertson
You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke – David Wolffe
Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime – J. California Cooper
Windy City Blues – Hugh Holton
The Queen Of The Blues: The Life Of Dinah Washington – James Haskins
Cold Medina – Gary Hardwick
The Between – Tananarive Due
And This Too Shall Pass – E. Lynn Harris
Magic City – Jewell Rhodes Parker
Waiting To Exhale – Terry McMillan
Black Mama Widow – Iceberg Slim
Pimp – Iceberg Slim
The Heart Of A Woman – Maya Angelou
What A Woman Gotta Do – Evelyn Coleman
Flyy Girl – Omar Tyree
The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni – Nikki Giovanni
Wishing On The Moon: The Life And Times of Billie Holiday – Donald Clarke
God’s Country – Percival Everett
A Raisin In The Sun – Lorraine Hansberry
The Piano Lesson – August Wilson
For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf – Ntozake Shange
Belly Song – Etheridge Knight
The Essential Etheridge Knight – Etheridge Knight
The Cattle Killing – John Edgar Wideman
The Complete Short Stories of Zora Neale Hurston – Zora Neale Hurston
Moses, Man Of The Mountain – Zora Neale Hurston
The Kindred – Octavia Butler

I’m afraid this is the best I can do with the books. Of course I’m stretching some of the choices, the plays are actually in paperback so I guess they count.