Black History Month - 2008

Several years ago, I found myself wondering why there were so few love stories written about contemporary Africans or about Africans in the diaspora. Yes, there were stories of war and civil strife; of tyranny; and of corruption. But where were all the grand amours, the tales of love and heartache? Unable to find the sort of stories that I was longing to read, I resorted to writing one myself, which resulted in the completion of my first novel, In Dependence.

Along the way, I have been inspired by a wide range of writers from Olaudah Equiano to Samuel Selvon, Andrea Levy and Zadie Smith - whose novels have brought to life the long history of Britain's black population. Looking across the Atlantic (in both directions), I have been influenced by writers such as James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe and an ever-growing group of dynamic new writers including Chris Abani, Patrice Nganang, Helon Habila, and Chimamanda Adichie. These are exciting times for black writers and artists; and Black History Month provides a much needed space and time in which to recognise and celebrate this burgeoning talent.

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Black History Month (BHM) is held every October in Britain. The key aims are to:

The origins of BHM go back to 1926 when Carter G Woodson, editor for 30 years of the Journal of Negro History, established African Caribbean celebrations in America. It is still celebrated there in February each year. Akyaaba Addai Sebbo is viewed as the person who set up Black History Month in Britain. Akyaaba worked for the Greater London Council (GLC) and worked with them to establish the event in 1987.

"We could call it just history month, but it's more than that. It's about forgotten heroes and stories that we never get told at school. We are taught more about the Battle of Waterloo at school than the relevance of Dr Martin Luther King. We hope this month goes some way to fill in the gaps."

Willber Wilberforce, Director of Programmes, 1xtra

Waterstones.com is pleased to be marking Black History Month 2008, highlighting some of the best current books on black history and experience, and profiling some of the world's greatest black authors - check out the author index below, and take a look at our fantastic selection of Black History Month books with up to 40% off the RRP.

Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe is an ever-present on university and school syllabuses everywhere, and in recent years authors such as Andrea Levy, who won both the the 2004 Orange Prize and the 2005 Whitbread Prize (now the Costa Award) with her novel of the Caribbean diaspora, Small Island, and the wonderful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who won the Orange Prize in 2006 with Half of a Yellow Sun, have demonstrated the cultural importance and popularity of both black writing and by extension, black history. Benjamin Zephaniah is one of our most popular and socially aware performance poets, and the precociously brilliant Helen Oyeyemi, who wrote her novel, The Icarus Girl, while still at school, is one of the latest crop of talented young black authors.

You can read more about these and many other leading black authors on our Black History Month Author Index