Gloria Naylor
American novelist, known for novels including The Women of Brewster Place , Linden Hills and Mama Day .
african-american short story writers
Zora Neale Hurston
American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker
Ernest J. Gaines
American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese
Ralph Ellison
American novelist, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act , a collection of political, social, and critical essays, and Going to the Territory . The New York Times dubbed him “among the gods of America’s literary Parnassus.” A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left upon his death.
Samuel R. Delany
American author and literary critic
James Baldwin
American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist
Maya Angelou
American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist