EPL Picks: Celebrating Black History MonthLike this list

35 items

• My Fighting Family

  Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us

  Campbell, Morgan

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  Journalist Morgan Campbell's debut memoir combines an incredible history of family's battles across generations with a hilarious and emotional coming-of-age story. Emerging is a powerful reckoning with what it means to be Black in Canada -…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Zami

  A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography

  Lorde, Audre

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  Composed of history, biography, and myth, this is a fast-paced telling of author, activist, poet and philsopher Audre Lorde's childhood in 1930s and 1940s growing up in Harlem. The biomythography traces Lorde's coming of age in high school, college,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• I've Been Meaning to Tell You

  a Letter to My Daughter

  Chariandy, David, 1969-

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  When a moment of quietly ignored bigotry prompted his three-year-old daughter to ask "what happened?" David Chariandy began wondering how to discuss with his children the politics of race. A decade later, in a newly heated era of both struggle and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Black Activist, Black Scientist, Black Icon

  the Autobiography of Dr. Howard D. McCurdy

  McCurdy, Howard, 1932-2018

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  The biography of one of Canada's most iconic Black politicians and activists, written with the country's former parliamentary poet laureate. Howard D. McCurdy was Canada's first Black tenured professor; a founder of the Canadian Civil Liberties…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Angry Queer Somali Boy

  a Complicated Memoir

  Ali, Mohamed Abdulkarim, 1985-

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  Angry Queer Somali Boy is a memoir by Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali, a young man who left Somalia, spent time in the Netherlands and ended up homeless in Canada. Canada was the promised land, but when he didn't fit in and life was more difficult than he…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Blackness Is a Gift I Can Give Her

  on Race, Community, and Black Women in Hockey

  Hess, R. Renee

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  Drawing on her insights founding the Black Hockey Club and those of community, Renee Hess presents a collection of deeply insightful and piercing essays that aim to shed light on the history of Black excellence in hockey and beyond. The book…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Policing Black Lives

  State Violence in Canada From Slavery to the Present

  Maynard, Robyn, 1987-

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  Robyn Maynard's Policing Black Lives traces the underreported modern and historical realities of anti-Blackness within a Canadian context. Maynard examines the fact that slavery occurred in Canada for more than 200 years and that enslaved Indigenous…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Shut Up You're Pretty

  Stories

  Mutonji, Téa, 1995-

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  In Tea Mutonji's disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding, a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• 'Membering

  Clarke, Austin, 1934-2016

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  In 'Membering, Austin Clarke documents his life growing up in Barbados and his experience living in Canada to attend school and become a journalist. Clarke writes about living during a time when a new generation of Black writers were emerging and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Black Like Who?

  Writing Black Canada

  Walcott, Rinaldo, 1965-

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  The biography of one of Canada's most iconic Black politicians and activists, written with the country's former parliamentary poet laureate. Howard D. McCurdy was Canada's first Black tenured professor; a founder of the Canadian Civil Liberties…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Code Noir

  Lubrin, Canisia

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  The Code Noir, or the Black Code, was a set of 59 articles decreed by Louis XVI in 1685 which regulated ownership of slaves in all French colonies. In her debut fiction work, Canisia Lubrin reflects on these codes to examine the legacy of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• North of the Color Line

  Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955

  Mathieu, Sarah-Jane

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  Sarah-Jane Mathieu highlights the underreported history of life in Canada for the estimated 5,000 Black people, both African Americans and West Indians, who immigrated to Canada after the end of Reconstruction in the United States.

• Until We Are Free

  Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada

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  Until We Are Free contains some of the very best writing on the hottest issues facing the Black community in Canada. It describes the latest developments in Canadian Black activism, organizing efforts through the use of social media,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• City in Colour

  Rediscovered Stories of Victoria's Multicultural Past

  Wong, May Q., 1955-

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  "Tells the stories of a number of individuals who were an important part of Victoria, British Columbia's history as well as being people of colour."

• How She Read

  Poems

  Gibson, Chantal N.

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  "How She Read is a collection of genre-blurring poems about the representation of Black women, their hearts, minds and bodies, across the Canadian cultural imagination."

• Black Boys Like Me

  Confrontations With Race, Identity, and Belonging

  Morris, Matthew R.

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  Startingly honest, bracing personal essays from educator and writer Matthew Morris explore the intersection of race, Black masculinity, hip-hop culture and education. The book examines the parts that construct the author's Black character; from how…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• They Said This Would Be Fun

  Race, Campus Life, and Growing Up

  Martis, Eternity

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  A booksmart kid from Toronto, Eternity Martis was excited to move away to Western University for her undergraduate degree. But as one of the few Black students there, she soon discovered that the campus experiences she'd seen in movies were far more…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Frying Plantain

  Stories

  Reid-Benta, Zalika, 1990-

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  Set in the neighbourhood of “Little Jamaica,” Frying Plantain is a series of short stories that follow a girl from elementary school to high school graduation as she navigates the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation immigrants…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Land to Light on

  Brand, Dionne, 1953-

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  Land to Light On opens onto the landscape of Canada. “Out here I am . . . not even safe as the sea,” she writes. “If I am peaceful . . . is not peace,/is getting used to harm.” Brand writes about a place where she is an outsider—as any poet or…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• George & Darril Fosty's Black Ice

  the Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895-1925

  Fosty, George Robert

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  "In 1895, The Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes was formed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This was Twenty-five years before the Negro Baseball Leauges in the United States, and twenty-two years before the birth of the National Hockey League. The…Read moreRead more of this annotation