Dear publishing industry — we need more books about Black people in Asia
The kinds of books set only in the continent and written by Black authors who currently live or have lived there, and the kind of stories and experiences that touch on topics with a twist. You all keep advertising that you’re looking for the next book from an author of an underrepresented background, well here is a reading space that needs to be explored with a lot of raw talent from Black authors with books set in Asia.
Out of the 30 books within this category that I’ve researched only two have been traditionally published — those being Asha Lemmie’s Fifty Words for Rain (Penguin Random House US, 2020) and Marvin D. Sterling’s Babylon East (Duke University Press, 2010). The rest are self-published and can be found on Amazon but are still not widely distributed around the world.
Black voices in Asia are needed within the book community and the publishing industry purely for readers who have never been to the continent but have a big interest to change that and want to read from another Black person’s perspective who has lived out there for years with extensive knowledge of the country they reside in, regardless of the social spaces and certain cultural aspects aren’t for us. Autobiographies like Black in China, fantasy books like Adrienne, or even children’s stories like Johnny & Joshua Coming to…
