Passages from Octavia E. Butler’s prophetic 1993 speculative fiction, Parable of the Sower, which features Los Angeles in 2025, devastated by climate change and societal collapse, have been making the rounds (especially since January’s double-punch of wildfires and the presidential inauguration). In this anthology, 20 award-winning writers (from N.K. Jemisin to Victor LaValle) draw inspiration from eerily prescient Afrofuturists like Butler for visionary, haunting fiction about Black identity.

Blending autobiography and literary criticism, the renowned Canadian poet and novelist reads English and American literature from the 17th to the 19th century (think: Mansfield Park, Robinson Crusoe). Scrutinizing and unpacking the Imperialist legacy, Brand reads between the lines to reveal the arrogance of settler culture and Victorian gentility that cloak the violence of empire. Brand’s new Alchemy imprint at Knopf Canada shares her book’s mandate to de-center colonial models of literature and thought – its latest offering is Kingston poet Otoniya J. Okot Bitek’s debut novel We, the Kindling, about the adult lives of three schoolgirls who survived capture by the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda.

Black Girl Hockey Club began as a group chat among female fans on Twitter and has since blossomed into a not-for-profit that advocates for Black women and girls in hockey across North America, including Canada. Hess, the California-based founder,  who discovered hockey on a TV bar in Pittsburgh, Penn., more than a decade ago, writes essays about representation on and off the ice, white feminism and the discomfort of feeling “other” in a very cisgender, white, male space. She highlights forgotten Black hockey history, like the Colored Hockey League and Canadian hockey player Herb Carnegie, while also looking to the future of representation in the sport.

An item advertised on eBay will sell for approximately 20 per cent less if a dark-skinned hand is shown in the photos. Data doesn’t lie, and West, a social psychologist at the University of London, takes a quantitative look at prejudice and discrimination. Surveying studies on systemic racism takes the reader on a tour of quantifiable evidence that will silence even the staunchest racism skeptics. The research is dense with facts and clear scientific results, while also being engaging and laced with disarming tongue-in-cheek humour. It ends with an approach to reducing racism, which is even more essential now that U.S. President Donald Trump has decided diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and initiatives are unnecessary.

The groundbreaking American performing artist and civil rights activist, who achieved international fame in Paris, set down her personal history in 1949 – in French. Published for the first time in English, with an introduction by American writer Ijeoma Oluo, it captures the essence of Baker’s arresting presence, candour and energy. Formed from conversations she had over 20 years with a French journalist, the tone is conspiratorial and the vignettes elliptical, as she flits through memories of performing in New York as a teenager during the Harlem Renaissance to captivating Paris audiences in the 1920s with her La Revue Nègre show and allusions to her wartime work in counter-intelligence for the French Resistance.

This slim volume collects the recent five-part, cross-Canada Massey Lecture series by the Trinidadian-born Canadian poet and Giller Prize-winning novelist (for 2019’s Reproduction), which addresses the deterioration of civic and civil discourse. The art and purpose of conversation is an evergreen subject, but the sincere exchange of thoughts and ideas feels crucial in these times. With this thought-provoking, soul-searching handbook, Williams – a professor of creative writing at the University of Toronto – confronts a major aspect of the zeitgeist: other people’s point of view. Listening is integral, as is the importance of courage around having difficult conversations – even at the risk of offending people.

In her new tome, the National Book Award-winning scholar of race, law and African American culture at Harvard University considers the Black experience through the lens of blue, and its symbolism as a colour of both melancholy and hope. According to the Cambridge, Mass.-based writer, the hue has much to teach about Black history: excavating the weight of transatlantic journeys, for instance, where it was the colour of the ocean sailed by the enslaved, as well as the indigo-dyed cloth that was currency in the West African slave trade. Perry also explains how the blue note in jazz – an in-between pitch – is a transformative sound that defines the musical genre and defies Western classification.

The self-made hair care mogul who founded Johnson Products Company in 1954 – the first Black-owned company to trade on Wall Street and the sponsor of the famed TV show Soul Train – is now 97 and living in Palm Desert, Calif. The entrepreneur born in a Mississippi sharecropper’s shack looks back at how his products, like Afro Sheen, a scalp conditioner that gave Black hair a glossy shine, met cultural moments, from the Jim Crow era through civil rights and the 1960s “Black is Beautiful” celebration of natural hair, and became a social and economic engine for the Black community. Johnson also imparts wisdom to the present generation by urging them to observe the Golden Rule, which, to him, means sharing profits to ensure economic empowerment.

Kendrick Lamar’s triumphant smirk, captured on camera during his Super Bowl halftime show, is just the latest addition to the archive of the Black visual culture that created viral culture. Russell, the executive director of the experimental arts institution The Kitchen and author of Glitch Feminism, argues that the contributions of Black imagery have been essential to shaping the hyper-digital culture that exists today. He goes back to the turn of the last century to retrace its impact, touching on 14-year-old Emmett Till’s 1955 lynching and the first viral video: citizen footage of the 1991 Rodney King beating by Los Angeles police. 

It’s a great read in tandem with Meredith D. Clark’s more academic approach in We Tried to Tell Y’All, about the heyday of Black Twitter countering the mainstream media practices that furthered anti-Black bias.

The New York-based octogenarian is best known for her acclaimed series featuring Black jazz saxophonist and amateur sleuth Nanette Hayes, published nearly 30 years ago, which tackled racism, colourism, classism and sexism. There’s something to solve at the heart of her return to detective fiction, set largely among a disparate group of people in Y2K-era New York City, but the haunting story also spans generations and connects to America’s roots in enslavement. The story, which begins with a group fleeing a Georgia plantation following the Civil War, addresses the country’s deep scars of racial trauma for a tale early reviews are calling spooky and genre-defying.