African cuisine is infused with Californian culture to create delicious, unique meals in this beautiful fusion cookbook.

Kiano Moju was born to a Kenyan mother and a Nigerian father and raised in California. While she spent her summer breaks in Kenya, her home in the states during the school year held African house parties where Nigerian jollof rice, moin moin (steamed bean cakes), roasted chicken legs, and plantains were a common part of life. On weekends and special occasions, they would make Kenyan dishes like samosas, sauteed collard greens, barbecued meat, and other favorites from her childhood including Ethiopian and Eritrean recipes. As Kiano says, “Californian cuisine embraces the flavors of its immigrant communities while celebrating the state’s agriculture and the flavors of fresh produce,” and that’s the concept behind her cooking.

AfriCali is not a traditional cookbook, but rather one inspired by the delicious meals Kiano has experienced in life. The recipes are unfussy but dedicated to flavor including:

* Peri Peri Butter
* Herby Harissa
* Lentil Nuggets
* Cherry Tomato Kachumbari
* Kijani Seafood Pilau
* Chicken and Okra Wet Fry
* Berbere Braised Short Ribs
* Coconut and Cardamom Mandazi
* Garlic Butter Chapos
* Pili Pili Pineapple Margarita

The gorgeous food photography as well as photos from the author’s travels in Africa make this a cookbook like no other. Dive in and enjoy the delicious, unique meals that the whole family will love.

Melvin Mitchell believes that the 2016 opening of the NMAAHC signals either a black architect renaissance or the demise of the black architect-practitioner corps in the U.S. by 2040 if not earlier…along with the demise of Black America’s cultural, political, and spatial beachheads in America’s big cities. He argues in this book that America’s perennial housing crisis - most acutely manifested in Black America’s accelerating displacement from America’s cities – must be countered by a new progressive 21st century movement that re-invents the revolutionary construction-based architecture modus operandi deployed 100 years ago by Booker T. Washington. Mitchell believes that Washington completed the build-out of the Tuskegee Institute campus as a counter to America’s building of the “White City” aka the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair-Columbian Exposition 600 miles to the north in Chicago, Illinois. Mitchell argues that the centerpiece of a new “architecture” must realign with the needs of Black America for majorincreases in home and business ownership and wealth creation. That requires a massive “Buy the Block”-type redevelopmentin urban Black America. Today that must entail nothing short of the literal building of at least one million newaffordable housing units in urban Black America by Black America between now and 2030. The means to accomplishsuch a moon shot are there in existing and emerging progressive legislation. The American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, the Green New Deal, and the Opportunity Zones Act must all beharnessed with the trillions of available public dollars, private equity funds, and black nouveau rich wealth to createand sustain an African American-dominated urban affordable housing industry. That may not be the answer but is mostcertainly one of several heretofore missing pieces.

Discover the roots of modern-day herbal remedies, plant medicine, holistic rituals, natural recipes, and more that were created by African American herbal healers throughout history.

This first-of-its-kind herbal guide takes you through the origins of herbal practices rooted in African American tradition—from Ancient Egypt and the African tropics to the Caribbean and the United States. Inside you’ll find the stories of herbal healers like Emma Dupree and Henrietta Jeffries, who made modern American herbalism what it is today. 

After rediscovering the forgotten legacies of these healers, African American Herbalism dives into the important contributions they made to the world of herbalism, including: 

• Rituals for sacred bathing and skin care
• Herbal tinctures, potions, and medicine 
• Recipes for healing meals and soul food 
• And more!

In the 19th century, Galveston shores were a gateway for immigrants to Texas and destinations beyond. Slaves, the forced immigrants, were brought to Galveston as property for sale. The largest slave trade operation in Galveston was implemented by Jean Laffite, a pirate. His slave trade business began around 1818. However, for the most part, slaves entering the port of Galveston were destined for other Texas cities and other states. Images of America: African Americans of Galveston presents the community life and accomplishments of Galveston slaves, the descendants of slaves, and descendants of those who migrated to Galveston after the Civil War. The book celebrates Galveston's African American culture from the 1840s to the 1960s.

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With African artists attracting sizable audience numbers to museums, setting sky-high auction records, and appearing in mainstream press, it has become impossible to overlook the cultural significance of contemporary African art today. Author and curator Osei Bonsu's engaging profiles of leading African artists—along with gorgeous full-color reproductions of their work—introduce readers to a generation of movers and shakers whose innovative artwork reflects on Africa as both an idea and an experience. Using diverse forms, languages, and expressions to articulate what it means to be a part of the world, these artists generate alternate histories and imaginative futures—work that is both personal and political, universal and incredibly specific. Their work helps define contemporary African art as a vast artistic and cultural movement.

STELLAR ROSTER OF ARTISTS: Amoako Boafo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Bronwyn Katz—from household names to up-and-coming artists, African Art Now features some of the most exciting artists working today.
IMPORTANT AND TIMELY: Over the past two decades, contemporary African art has become part of the global mainstream, inspiring countless exhibitions, fairs, and auctions around the world. And yet, African art remains overlooked as an area of dedicated study due to continued academic and cultural bias. This book shines a spotlight on the artists whose wide-ranging accomplishments represent the shifting dynamics and boundless possibilities of African art today.

Perfect for:

• Artists, art collectors, art lovers, and museumgoers
• Educators and students
• Anyone interested in learning about contemporary African art

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A groundbreaking A-Z survey of the work of over 300 modern and contemporary artists born or based in Africa

Modern and Contemporary African art is at the forefront of the current curatorial and collector movement in today’s art scene. This groundbreaking new book, created in collaboration with a prestigious global advisory board, represents the most substantial appraisal of contemporary artists born or based in Africa available. Features the work of more than 300 artists, including El Anatsui, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt, Lubaina Himid, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu, and Robin Rhode, as well as lesser-known names from across Africa, with stunning and surprising examples of their art paired with insightful texts that demonstrate their contribution to the painting, sculpture, installation, photography, moving image, and performance art.

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A beautiful first guide to African elephants, part of an exciting new series of animal books.

Head on safari to the grasslands of Africa to study African elephants in this beautiful nonfiction field guide for kids.

You might know that African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth, but there’s so much more to learn about these tusked creatures. Turn the pages to find out why the grandmother is in charge of an elephant family, and why big ears help elephants cool down! Meet a baby elephant as it takes its first steps, and discover how to tell the difference between an African elephant and an Asian elephant. The book also looks at the conservation challenges these iconic animals face due to climate change and ivory poaching.

Following the hugely successful Black Sci-Fri Short Stories and Asian Ghost Short Stories, comes this deluxe edition of new African writing and tales rooted in ancient culture. This collection explores the deep-seated supernatural element in African storytelling – whether reaching back to the spirits, ancestors and ogres of folklore or the vibrantly modern ghosts of today's African horror. New and contemporary stories complement poignant folktales such as ‘The Story of Takane’ from Lesotho and ‘The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull’ from Nigeria.

With a foreword by award-winning Nigerian-British writer Nuzo Onoh, an introduction by Prof. Divine Che Neba, and invaluable editorial support from writer and editor Chinelo Onwualu, this latest offering in the Flame Tree Gothic fantasy series delves into the fascinating heritage of African ghostly lore and literature, while allowing it to be reclaimed and retold by contemporary African voices.

The Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories, the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

In this expansive collection of history, meet ten real-life kings, queens, inventors, scholars, and visionaries who lived in Africa thousands of years ago and changed the world.

Black history begins thousands of years ago with the many cultures and people of the African continent. Through portraits of ten heroic figures, bestselling author Tracey Baptiste takes readers on an empowering, energetic journey through time to meet some of the great leaders and thinkers whose vision built nations and shaped the course of history:

• Menes: Creator of Dynasties
• Merneith: A Queen Erased
• Imhotep: From Peasant to God
• Aesop: The Wisest Man in the Ancient World
• Hannibal Barca: Unparalleled Military Strategist
• Terence: North African Playwright
• Amanirenas: Warrior, Diplomat, Queen
• Tin Hinan: Founder of a City on the Dunes
• Mansa Musa: The Richest Man of All Time
• Queen Idia: Kingmaker

Illustrator Hillary D. Wilson's brilliant portraits accompany each profile, along with vivid, information-filled landscapes, maps, and graphics for readers to pore over and return to again and again. This rich and thrilling work, which celebrates Black excellence and provides an essential correction to Eurocentric tellings of history, will enthrall readers of all ages.

“In African Icons, Baptiste engages in the hard work of unveiling the myths about the African continent to young readers . . . This is a great beginner’s guide to pre-colonial Africa.” —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist  

If the question is America-and by extension, who is and what does it mean to be American? -AFRICANAMERICAN'T offers no answers. The CAN'T in the title suggests impossibility and that is precisely what the book is interested in. Even in the so-called land of opportunity, some things remain impossible for its speaker(s). In a way, AFRICANAMERICAN'T is a document of attempted refusals: assimilation, forgetting, and allegiance to any one country. However valid despair might be as a response to the continued failings of his two countries, Ayokunle Falomo traverses the distance between betrayal and love in an attempt to find poetry-and perhaps, something like hope-in all the places it can't be found.

The Afro Unicorns are on parade! Magical, Unique, and Divine celebrate inclusivity and friendship as they bring all the Afro Unicorns together to celebrate the annual Festival of Crowns.

The Festival of Crowns is one of the biggest gatherings of the year in Afronia, and everyone is excited to march in the big parade to celebrate.

But when a last-minute problem puts the parade in jeopardy, the three best friends work together to find a solution.

When Afro Unicorn creator April Showers realized that her favorite emoji—the unicorn!—was only available in white, she was inspired to create a more inclusive brand for children of color to celebrate how magical, unique, and divine they truly are.

Don’t miss the other books in the Afro Unicorn series—
The Most Magical Time of the Year!
Divine Makes a Splash
We Are Afro Unicorns
You Are a Unicorn!
A Magical Day

Step 1 Readers feature big type and easy words for children who know the alphabet and are eager to begin reading. Rhyme and rhythmic text paired picture clues help children decode the story.

Afronia is known for being bright and colorful, but what happens when a disgraced unicorn wants to take the color away? Join unicorn best friends Divine and Unique as they journey to save Afronia in this all-new, action-packed graphic novel that celebrates Black joy and beauty. 

Welcome to the mystical land of Afronia, where life is good and full of color. The Afro Unicorns can't wait to celebrate the annual Festival of Crowns. But on the way to the festival, Divine and Unique come across Castle Monotonic, which is home to the mysterious Madame Imperious who wants to drain all the color from Afronia. Madame Imperious has already started draining the color from a young Afrosaurus. It's up to Unique and Divine to save Afronia and the Afrosaurus. Otherwise, their magical land might be doomed . . . FOREVER!

This full-color graphic novel is great for young readers beginning their graphic novel journey and graphic novel enthusiasts alike. It also features a Dyslexia-friendly font.

When Afro Unicorn creator April Showers realized that her favorite emoji—the unicorn!—was only available in white, she was inspired to create a more inclusive brand for children of color to celebrate how magical, unique, and divine they truly are.

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Afro-Atlantic Histories brings together a selection of more than 400 works and documents by more than 200 artists from the 16th to the 21st centuries that express and analyze the ebbs and flows between Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe. The book is motivated by the desire and need to draw parallels, frictions and dialogues around the visual cultures of Afro-Atlantic territories―their experiences, creations, worshiping and philosophy. The so-called Black Atlantic, to use the term coined by Paul Gilroy, is geography lacking precise borders, a fluid field where African experiences invade and occupy other nations, territories and cultures.
The plural and polyphonic quality of “histórias” is also of note; unlike the English “histories,” the word in Portuguese carries a double meaning that encompasses both fiction and nonfiction, personal, political, economic and cultural, as well as mythological narratives.
The book features more than 400 works from Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean, as well as Europe, from the 16th to the 21st century. These are organized in eight thematic groupings: Maps and Margins; Emancipations; Everyday Lives; Rites and Rhythms; Routes and Trances; Portraits; Afro Atlantic Modernisms; Resistances and Activism.
Artists include: Nina Chanel Abney, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Emanoel Araujo, Maria Auxiliadora, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Paul Cézanne, Victoria Santa Cruz, Beauford Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Melvin Edwards, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Ben Enwonwu, Ellen Gallagher, Theodore Géricault, Barkley Hendricks, William Henry Jones, Loïs Mailou Jones, Titus Kaphar, Wifredo Lam, Norman Lewis, Ibrahim Mahama, Edna Manley, Archibald Motley, Abdias Nascimento, Gilberto de la Nuez, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Dalton Paula, Rosana Paulino, Howardena Pindell, Heitor dos Prazeres, Joshua Reynolds, Faith Ringgold, Gerard Sekoto, Alma Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, Rubem Valentim, Kara Walker and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

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In Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life, cultural critic and historian Tavia Nyong’o surveys the conditions of contemporary black artistic production in the era of post-blackness. Moving fluidly between the insurgent art of the 1960’s and the intersectional activism of the present day, Afro-Fabulations challenges genealogies of blackness that ignore its creative capacity to exceed conditions of traumatic loss, social death, and archival erasure.

If black survival in an anti-black world often feels like a race against time, Afro-Fabulations looks to the modes of memory and imagination through which a queer and black polytemporality is invented and sustained. Moving past the antirelational debates in queer theory, Nyong’o posits queerness as “angular sociality,” drawing upon queer of color critique in order to name the gate and rhythm of black social life as it moves in and out of step with itself. He takes up a broad range of sites of analysis, from speculative fiction to performance art, from artificial intelligence to Blaxploitation cinema. Reading the archive of violence and trauma against the grain, Afro-Fabulations summons the poetic powers of queer world-making that have always been immanent to the fight and play of black life.

While Africans and their descendants have lived in Mexico for centuries, many Afro-Mexicans do not consider themselves to be either black or African. For almost a century, Mexico has promoted an ideal of its citizens as having a combination of indigenous and European ancestry. This obscures the presence of African, Asian, and other populations that have contributed to the growth of the nation. However, performance studies—of dance, music, and theatrical events—reveal the influence of African people and their cultural productions on Mexican society.

In this work, Anita González articulates African ethnicity and artistry within the broader panorama of Mexican culture by featuring dance events that are performed either by Afro-Mexicans or by other ethnic Mexican groups about Afro-Mexicans. She illustrates how dance reflects upon social histories and relationships and documents how residents of some sectors of Mexico construct their histories through performance. Festival dances and, sometimes, professional staged dances point to a continuing negotiation among Native American, Spanish, African, and other ethnic identities within the evolving nation of Mexico. These performances embody the mobile histories of ethnic encounters because each dance includes a spectrum of characters based upon local situations and historical memories.

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Longlisted • National Book Award (Nonfiction)

Why does race seem to color almost every feature of our moral and political universe? Why does a perpetual cycle of slavery—in all its political, intellectual, and cultural forms—continue to define the Black experience? And why is anti-Black violence such a predominant feature not only in the United States but around the world? These are just some of the compelling questions that animate Afropessimism, Frank B. Wilderson III’s seminal work on the philosophy of Blackness.

Combining precise philosophy with a torrent of memories, Wilderson presents the tenets of an increasingly prominent intellectual movement that sees Blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Drawing on works of philosophy, literature, film, and critical theory, he shows that the social construct of slavery, as seen through pervasive anti-Black subjugation and violence, is hardly a relic of the past but the very engine that powers our civilization, and that without this master-slave dynamic, the calculus bolstering world civilization would collapse. Unlike any other disenfranchised group, Wilderson argues, Blacks alone will remain essentially slaves in the larger Human world, where they can never be truly regarded as Human beings, where, “at every scale of abstraction, violence saturates Black life.”

And while Afropessimism delivers a formidable philosophical account of being Black, it is also interwoven with dramatic set pieces, autobiographical stories that juxtapose Wilderson’s seemingly idyllic upbringing in mid-century Minneapolis with the abject racism he later encounters—whether in late 1960s Berkeley or in apartheid South Africa, where he joins forces with the African National Congress. Afropessimism provides no restorative solution to the hatred that abounds; rather, Wilderson believes that acknowledging these historical and social conditions will result in personal enlightenment about the reality of our inherently racialized existence.

Radical in conception, remarkably poignant, and with soaring flights of lyrical prose, Afropessimism reverberates with wisdom and painful clarity in the fractured world we inhabit. It positions Wilderson as a paradigmatic thinker and as a twenty-first-century inheritor of many of the African American literary traditions established in centuries past.

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After the Rain is a graphic novel adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story “On the Road.” The drama takes place in a small Nigerian town during a violent and unexpected storm. A Nigerian-American woman named Chioma answers a knock at her door and is horrified to see a boy with a severe head wound standing at her doorstep. He reaches for her, and his touch burns like fire. Something is very wrong. Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to survive.

John Jennings and David Brame’s graphic novel collaboration uses bold art and colors to powerfully tell this tale of identity and destiny.

In After the Rain, celebrated self-care storyteller Alexandra Elle delivers 15 lessons on how to overcome obstacles, build confidence, and cultivate abundance. Part memoir and part guide, Elle shares stirring stories from her own remarkable journey from self-doubt to self-love.

This soulful collection is filled with illuminating reflections on loss, fear, bravery, healing, love, acceptance, and more.

• Readers follow along her journey as she transforms challenging experiences—a difficult childhood, painful romantic relationships, and single parenting as a young mom—into fuel for her career as a successful entrepreneur and author driven by purpose and pasion
• Filled with Elle's signature candor and warmth
• Includes empowering affirmations and meditations for readers to practice in their own lives

After the Rain is a soulful guide to help you embrace all the beauty, love, and opportunity life has to offer.

• Presented in luminous package with a foil case and gold accents
• A beautiful gift for anyone on the path to self-discovery, and an uplifting reminder that there is always sunshine after the rain
• Perfect for the friend who loves meditating, self-care, journaling, or seeking personal transformation and empowerment
• Great for those who loved Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist, 100 Days to Brave by Annie F. Downs, and anything written by Brené Brown, Rupi Kaur, Rachel Hollis, and Elizabeth Gilbert

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When he was just a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents on the coast of east Africa by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into de facto slavery. Hamza too, is back from the war. He was not stolen but sold into service, where he became the protégé of an officer whose special interest has left him literally scarred for life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only steady work and safety – until he meets the beautiful, undaunted Afiya. As these young people live and work and fall in love, their fates knotted ever more tightly together, the shadow of a new war on another continent falls over them, ready to snatch them up and once again carry them away.
Spanning from the end of the nineteenth century, when the Europeans carved up Africa, on through the tumultuous decades of revolt and suppression that followed, AFTERLIVES is an astonishingly moving portrait of survivors refusing to sacrifice their humanity to the violent forces that assail them.

In the first Spice Isle Bakery Mystery, investigating a murder was never supposed to be on the menu. . .

Little Caribbean, Brooklyn, New York: Lyndsay Murray is opening Spice Isle Bakery with her family, and it’s everything she’s ever wanted. The West Indian bakery is her way to give back to the community she loves, stay connected to her Grenadian roots, and work side-by-side with her family. The only thing getting a rise out of Lyndsay is Claudio Fabrizi, a disgruntled fellow bakery owner who does not want any competition. On opening day, he comes into the bakery threatening to shut them down. Fed up, Lyndsay takes him to task in front of what seems to be the whole neighborhood. So when Claudio turns up dead a day later—murdered—Lyndsay is unfortunately the prime suspect. To get the scent of suspicion off her and her bakery, Lyndsay has to prove she’s innocent—under the watchful eyes of her overprotective brother, anxious parents, and meddlesome extended family—what could go wrong?

A collection of Sojourner Truth's iconic words, including her famous speech at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio

A former slave and one of the most powerful orators of her time, Sojourner Truth fought for the equal rights of black women throughout her life. This selection of her impassioned speeches is accompanied by the words of other inspiring African-American female campaigners from the nineteenth century.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives--and upended them. Now Penguin brings you a new set of the acclaimed Great Ideas, a curated library of selections from the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Perceptive and original, Ain’t I an Anthropologist is an overdue reassessment of Zora Neale Hurston’s place in American cultural and intellectual life.