Back The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories (paperback)

The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories (paperback)

Edited by andré m. carrington

Books have arrived in the LOA warehouse. Order your copy today, and it will be shipped to you now—ahead of the publication date.
In bookstores February 4, 2025.

Overview
Table of Contents
Contributors

Overview

Inspired by Afrofuturist pioneers like Octavia E. Butler and Samuel R. Delany, a new generation of Black writers is fashioning a renaissance in speculative fiction. Edited and introduced by SF expert andré m. carrington, The Black Fantastic brings together Hugo, Locus, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Tiptree/Otherwise, and World Fantasy Award winners with emerging voices to showcase this watershed moment in American literature.

Here are twenty beguiling, unsettling, and visionary stories spanning the cosmos and a dazzling array of alternate timelines. Phenderson Djèlí Clark and Alaya Dawn Johnson stare down the specters of history in their haunting fictions, set, respectively, on a Founding Father’s brutal plantation and in the vampire-built internment camps of a dystopian Hawai‘i. Violet Allen’s would-be superhero stories turn to searing metafiction when her main character is repeatedly shot and killed by the police. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Rion Amilcar Scott explore otherworldly forces at play in a small-town barbershop and in a young writer’s ambitions, while Victor LaValle tells the story of a man living on the streets of New York City, his bag of deposit bottles and cans bearing urgent messages from another dimension.

Other stories are by turns comic, provocative, and terrifying: Thaddeus Howze delivers a crowd-pleasing tall tale about a battle with aliens over the fate of Earth, by way of an epic baseball game; Maurice Broaddus spins a coming-of-age fantasy about an American girl in a utopian future Africa; Craig Laurance Gidney offers a Lovecraftian tour of the ballroom drag scene; Tara Campbell weaves a spell of ecofeminist horror; and much more.

Reimagining the past and laying claim to the future, these writers are bringing forth kaleidoscopic new visions of Black identity and creative freedom.

andré m. carrington, editor, is the author of Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction (2016). He is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where he directs the Speculative Fiction and Cultures of Science program.

This paperback edition features French flaps and has been printed on acid-free paper.
Table of Contents

Introduction, andré m. carrington
Herbal, Nalo Hopkinson
All That Touches the Air, An Owomoyela
Bludgeon, Thaddeus Howze
A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’I, Alaya Dawn Johnson
Sanford and Sun, Dawolu Jabari Anderson
A Song for You, Jennifer Marie Brissett
Tender, Sofia Samatar
The Malady of Need, Kiini Ibura Salaam
The Venus Effect, Violet Allen
The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington, Phenderson Djèlí Clark
The Hospital Where, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
The Ones Who Stay and Fight, N. K. Jemisin
The Final Flight of the Unicorn Girl, Alex Smith
Calendar Girls, Justina Ireland
Shape-ups at Delilah’s, Rion Amilcar Scott
Habibi, Tochi Onyebuchi
Spyder Threads, Craig Laurance Gidney
The Orb, Tara Campbell
We Travel the Spaceways, Victor LaValle
Ruler of the Rear Guard, Maurice Broaddus
Contributors
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Violet Allen
Dawolu Jabari Anderson
Jennifer Marie Brissett
Maurice Broaddus
Tara Campbell
Phenderson Djèlí Clark
Craig Laurance Gidney
Nalo Hopkinson
Thaddeus Howze
Justina Ireland
N. K. Jemisin
Alaya Dawn Johnson
Victor LaValle
Tochi Onyebuchi
An Owomoyela
Kiini Ibura Salaam
Sofia Samatar
Rion Amilcar Scott
Alex Smith

19.95 List Price: $24.95 (Save: 20%) Free shipping on orders $50 and over

Or buy from our partners

Buy the eBook

Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #410588

ISBN: 978-1-59853-811-3 376 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

Related Books

Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories LOA N°338

The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women

The Future Is Female! More Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women

R. A. Lafferty: Past Master (paperback & LOA eBook Classic)

Ursula K. Le Guin: Five Ways to Forgiveness (LOA eBook Classic)

Library of America

CURATOR

A champion of America’s great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation’s history and culture.

Learn More

PUBLISHER

From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely recognized as America’s literary canon.

Browse our books Subscribe

NON-PROFIT

With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come.

Support our mission

The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories (paperback)

Related Books

Get 10% off your first Library of America purchase.