Five Memoirs by Black Women that Examine the Complexity of Black Life

The good thing about memoir is that if you know where to look, you can almost always find a memoir that examines the topic you want to explore. The problem is, it may not be written by someone you necessarily identify with on a personal level. That’s why I’m always telling Black people, and other people of color in particular, to tell their stories. To write them down. To let people know about the lives we’ve lived, the troubles we’ve seen, the triumphs we’ve had, and the wisdom we have gathered along the way. You never know who needs to hear our healing journeys.

Five Memoirs by Black Women You Should Read If…

Here are five stunning memoirs by Black women that cover a range of human experiences, both the messy and the miraculous. From birth to death, and all the stages in between. I particularly like these memoirs because they are quite unique and show the breadth of the Black experience beyond common stereotypes. They are also well-written and highly engaging, and could serve as the blueprint for telling your own story.

Healing after the Death of a Spouse and What Comes After

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily and Finding Home by Tembi Locke

This gorgeous book, turned Netflix series, is actress Tembi Locke’s first book. In it she recounts her romantic love story meeting and falling in love with her Italian husband, and then losing him to cancer. The majority of the story though, details how Locke made it through her grief by retuning to her husband’s Italian homeland with her young daughter in tow.

What the Critics Say: “Tembi Locke’s moving, vivid memoir is an epic cross-cultural romance, a tragedy, a tale of self-discovery and, best of all, a testament to the simple healing powers of good food.” —Shelf Awareness

Traveling the World to Find a Place Where Black People Can Call Home

Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora by Emily Raboteau

Before the Black travel moment. Before #Blaxit was a hashtag, writer Emily Raboteau penned this thought-provoking travel memoir where she chronicles her travels around the world searching for a homeland for Black Americans. Raboteau goes to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South asking questions but ultimately finding no definitive answers to her quest.

What the Critics Say: “Raboteau’s voice is as COMPLEX as her journey. Her descriptions are COGENT and STRIKING. Her irreverence and gumption provide comic relief and invite the reader to want to be friends with this scribe whose mouth sometimes gets her in trouble, and who ultimately seems to be as TOUGH as she is vulnerable. It is undoubtedly an intellectual’s path, filled with detailed discussions of African American religious history, Rastafarian theology, Ethiopian history and ending with a BRILLIANT analysis of the prosperity gospel of evangelical mega-churches.” -San Francisco Chronicle

Motherhood, Single Parenthood, Parenting a Special Needs Child and More

Ain’t That a Mother: Postpartum, Palsy and Everything in Between by Adiba Nelson

Nothing about Adiba Nelson’s journey into motherhood was planned or expected. From getting pregnant accidentally, to having a daughter with special needs, Nelson holds nothing back in this heartfelt yet humorous memoir. Grounded in a reality that will feel familiar to many Black women, Nelson’s memoir is as much about learning to love oneself as it is about facing the challenges of motherhood.

What the Critics Say: “Ain’t That A Mother is a treasure-filled gold mine of a book that’ll leave you alternately teary-eyed and clutching your stomach and your pearls. What a clear-eyed, wisdom-filled, heart-led, emotional journey in the shoes of this mama bear, this lover, this advocate, this mover, this passionate woman. Brava!”  Denene Millner, New York Times bestselling author of My Brown Baby: On the Joys and Challenges of Raising African American Children

A Spiritual Journey that Defies the Ordinary

Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun by Faith Adeile

Not many Black girls in America aspire to be a Buddhist nun. Faith Adeile didn’t aspire to be one either, and yet she found herself in a remote monastery in Thailand, studying to be a nun when she was in her early twenties anyway. Written way before Eat, Pray, Love became the blueprint for single female, solo travel, Meeting Faith is as much about spirituality as it is about finding oneself in the most unexpected of places.

What the Critics Say: “…readers can and will learn from Adiele, who parses out her … stay in Thailand with a comic’s timing, a novelist’s keen observations about human idiosyncrasies and an anthropologist’s sensitivity to issues of race and culture.”

Claiming Blackness in a White World

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

For any Black woman who has grown up in America, Austin Channing Brown’s searing memoir of leaning to love her Blackness will resonate. The social justice advocate unravels her experiences growing up in middle America, where being Black was neither an asset nor an honor, and her eventual arrival at place where she now fights for justice and inclusion at major institutions. A Reece’s book club pick, I’m Still Here is often heralded as one of the best explorations of what it’s like to defy whiteness and love our Black selves anyway.

What the Critics Say: “A deeply personal celebration of blackness that simultaneously sheds new light on racial injustice and inequality while offering hope for a better future.”—Shondaland

Black Girl, White Mother, Adoption and Passing

Secret Daughter: A Mixed Race Daughter and the Mother Who Gave Her Away by June Cross

Journalist and television producer, June Cross, lays bare the true story of her life growing up knowing her white mother gave her away when she was four years old because she became too dark to pass for white. Raised by a Black family but still in contact with her white mother, Secret Daughter is an incredible exploration of family ties, motherhood and race. Bonus, there is a documentary about Cross and her family as well.

What the Critics Say: ” Secret Daughter is a deftly drawn and moving portrait of a childhood spent in two very different worlds: one white, one Black. ”

Reading Memoir & Writing Memoir

Memoirs are powerful beasts. Like (good) reality TV, they can provide us with the behind the scenes version of a person’s life. What’s more, if written well, a memoir can be like literary medicine for whatever stage of life we’re struggling with. So, I encourage you to read memoir and write memoir. Somebody in the world might need to hear your story.

Have you ever thought about writing a memoir? What’s stopping you?