Below is a list of some highly recommended books written by people of color (in no particular order). They span across a wide variety of genres and target audiences. Thank you to everyone who submitted their favorites and helped make this list possible! Known triggers are in parentheses next to the books they apply to, but if there is something that has been missed or there’s a book you’d like me to add, please don’t hesitate to let me know! Happy reading!
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (rape, murder, child abuse, domestic violence)
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
Migritude - Shailija Patel (gore, violence, rape mentions, abuse)
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The God of Small Things - Arundathi Roy (child abuse, sex)
Joys of Motherhood - Buchi Emecheta (starvation, poverty, gore, and suicide)
Distant View of a Minaret - Alifa Rifaat (castration and death)
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Emails from Scheherazade - Mohja Kahf (sexual violence)
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz (transphobic language/violence, homophobic violence)
Boy Snow Bird - Helen Oyeyemi
Sister of My Heart - Chitra Banerjee Divakurani
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
The Meursault Investigation - Kamel Daoud
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
The Summer Prince - Alaya Dawn Johnson
The Noughts and Crosses series - Malorie Blackman
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini (rape, murder, child abuse, domestic violence)
And The Mountain Echoed - Khaled Hosseini (rape, child abuse)
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing - Mira Karoll
Born Confused - Tanuja Desai Hidier
The Queen of Water - Laura Resau and María Virginia Farinango (child abuse, sexual harassment/child sexual abuse, racism, internalized racism, internalized shadism)
Time to Dance - Padma Venkatraman
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri (implications of rape and sexual harassment)
Veronika Decides to Die - Paulo Coelho
Astonishing the Gods - Ben Okri
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
Fasting Feasting - Anita Desai
The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi
Drown - Junot Diaz
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak
Honor: A Novel - Elif Shafak
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Reservation Blues - Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
The Age of Shiva - Manil Suri
The Kitchen God’s Wife - Amy Tan
Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel - Sara Farizan
By the Light of My Father’s Smile - Alice Walker
A Case of Exploding Mangoes - Mohammed Hanif
No God but God - Reza Aslan
The Palace of Illusions - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki
Babji - Abha Dawesar
Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri (implications of rape and sexual harassment)
Funny Boy - Shyam Selvadurai (violence, rape mention)
The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros (sexual assault)
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Brick Lane - Monica Ali
No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai
A Bad Character - Deepti Kapoor (death, abusive relationships)
Karma and Other Stories - Rishi Reddi
The Burning Sky - Sherry Thomas
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Climbing the Stairs - Padma Venkatraman
The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
Coin Locker Babies - Ryu Murakami
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
Please Look After Mom - Shin Kyung Sook
Bonsai Kitten - Lakshmi Narayan
Written in the Stars - Aisha Saeed
The Hero’s Walk - Anita Rau Badami
Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El Saadawi
The Golden Age - Tahmima Anam
Season of Migration to the North - Tayib Saleh
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
Snow - Orhan Pamuk
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
The President - Miguel Asturias (extreme violence, rape)
The Hungry Ghosts - Shyam Selvadurai
The Skin I’m In - Sharon G. Flake
Black Boy - Richard Wright
Cinnamon Gardens - Shyam Selvadurai
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami (domestic violence, horror, violence)
She of the Mountains - Vivek Shraya (explicit sex)
Island of a Thousand Mirrors - Nayomi Munaweera (rape, violence)
Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew - Shehan Karunatilaka
Broken Circle - Theodore Fontaine (child sexual abuse, alcoholism, anti-Native sentiment)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid
Burnt Shadows, Kratography, Salt and Saffron - Kamila Shamsie
Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga
Birds of Paradise Lost - Andrew Lam
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Bitter Melon - Cara Chow (child abuse)
Q&A - Vikas Swarup
Five Point Someone - Chetan Bhagat
Motorcycles and Sweetgrass - Drew Hayden Taylor
Lakota Woman - Mary Crow-Dog
Legend Trilogy - Marie Lu
The Young Elites - Marie Lu
The Wrath and the Dawn - Renee Ahdieh
An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir (rape, abuse)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon - Grace Lin
Half of A Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Children of The Jacaranda Tree - Sahar Delijani
The Twentieth Wife - Indu Sundaresan
Destiny’s Captive - Beverly Jenkins
Tiny Pretty Things - Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton (eating disorders, bullying, family issues)
Lakota Woman - Mary Brave Bird (child abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual abuse)
Flight - Sherman Alexie (child abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual abuse)
Nervous Conditions - Tsitsi Dangerembga (violence, eating disorders and mental illness)
Redefining Realness - Janet Mock (child sexual assault, child abuse, transphobia)
The Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston
Under the Udala Trees - Chinelo Okparanta (homophobia, violence against queer women)
The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo
The Shiva Trilogy - Amish Tripathi (rape)
The Krishna Key - Ashwin Sanghi
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before - Jenny Han
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Shatter Me Trilogy - Tahereh Mafi
The promise - Nikita Singh
When Only Love Remains - Durjoy Datta
Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandaya
Chords of Strength - David Archuleta
This Bridge Called My Back - Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (rape/suicide mentions)
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou (rape)
Draupadi: The Fire-Born Princess - Saraswati Nagpal
The Hybrid Chronicles - Kat Zhang (child abuse, violence)
Esperanza Rising - Pam Muñoz Ryan
Becoming Naomi Leon - Pam Muñoz Ryan
The Summer I Turned Pretty - Jenny Han
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
Out of My Mind - Sharon Draper
Ghana Must Go - Taiye Selasi
Difficult Daughters - Manju Kapoor
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez (violence, explicit sex, death)
Birdie - Tracy Lindberg
Burn For Burn - Jenny Han
Mãn - Kim Thúy
Huntress - Malinda Lo
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
From Heaven Lake - Vikram Seth
Two Lives - Vikram Seth
Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler (violence)
The Mango Bride - Marivi Soliven (abuse)
Between Two Worlds - Roxana Saberi
When the Elephants Dance - Tess Holthe (rape)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
A Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez (violence, explicit sex, death)
La Vie et Demie - Sony Labou Tansi - French (gore, sexual violence)
L'Enfant de Sable - Tahar Ben Jelloun - French (gender violence)
Girls of Riyadh - Rajaa Alsanea
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives - Lola Shoneyin
I Do Not Come to You by Chance - Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
26a - Diana Evans
Cloth Girl - Marilyn Heward Mills
The Hidden Star - K. Sello Duiker
kemi’s journal - Abidemi Sanusi
Imagine This - Vickie M. Stringer
God’s Bits of Wood - Sembene Ousmane
Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel García Márquez (violence, explicit sex, death)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X (trigger warnings for rape, racism, death)
Roots - Alex Haley
Sultana’s Dream - Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
The Crossover - Kwame Alexander
I Am Malala - Malala Yousafzai
Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia - Jenny Torres Sanchez
When Reason Breaks - Cindy Rodriguez
Los Perros - Lorea Canales - Spanish
The Secret Side of Empty - Maria E. Andreu
The Wake of the White Tiger - Diamond Shamsher Rana
Blue Mimosa - Parijat - best read in its original language of Nepali
The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison (child sexual abuse, racism, violence, animal abuse, body image)
Empress Orchid - Anchee Min
Annihilation of Caste - B.R. Ambedkar
Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz
How to Be Drawn - Terrance Hayes
When My Brother Was an Aztec - Natalie Diaz (explicit sex, drug references)
Boy With Thorn - Rickey Laurentiis
Between The World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates (police brutality)
Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat
I Too Had A Love Story - Ravinder Singh
Can Love Happen Twice? - Ravinder Singh
Boys Don’t Cry - Malorie Blackman
If You Could Be Mine - Sara Farizan
Ash - Malinda Lo
Pig Heart Boy - Malorie Blackman (death)
The Pearl that Broke Its Shell - Nadia Hashimi
Brown Girl Dreaming - Jacqueline Woodsen
Umrao Jaan Ada - Mirza Hadi Ruswa - Urdu
Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? - Beverly Daniel Tatum
Citizen - Claudia Rankin
This is How You Lose Her - Junot Diaz
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth - Warsan Shire
Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera
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