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There is a lot going on in the world of BIPOC literature. For starters, Solange has started an online library for rare Black literature, a groundbreaking Asian American children’s book author has passed away, and a Black lesbian bookstore opened in Brooklyn.
What they had to say about Vuong:
“In an age of declining reading, the popularity of Vuong’s poetry and novels—including his most recent, The Emperor of Gladness, which was an immediate best seller this spring—is a heartening reminder that there are still dedicated readers.”
“…Not only that—these readers can be fans. Vuong is one of the few writers who have transcended the purely literary world into the realm of actual celebrity, buoyed by the power of his writing and the insight, sensitivity, and openness that it exhibits.”
The Saint Heron library is a digital space that contains archived works from Black writers and poets. It is meant to be “a literary center dedicated to students, artists, creatives and general book/literature enthusiasts interested in exploring and studying the breadth of artistic expression.”
I swear, Solange is out here living the life I would if I had the money and influence (and talent) she did.
Taqwa Ahmed al-Wawi speaks of the friends she’s lost and the many times she has had to move, carrying only one bag with a few clothes and losing more and more loved ones along the way.
“I left with a single bag containing a few clothes. Every corner, every wall, every object carried a piece of my soul. I wished for a bag that could hold all the walls, all the memories, every vestige of my home.”
The Asian American Journalists Association has published an article honoring the life and legacy of Ken Mochizuki, whose career spanned from acting on the show M*A*S*H to writing and publishing a groundbreaking children’s book—titled Baseball Saved Us—about a Japanese American boy who lived in an incarceration camp during WWII.
He passed away of esophageal cancer on September 20th. He was 71.
While UC Berkeley ethnic studies department assistant professor Long Le-Khac’s new database has Asian American literature that spans from 1971 to 2023, it also asks an important question: “What counts as ‘Asian American literature?’”
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Among the Latine romances Mia Sosa recommends are, firstly, her latest, When Javi Dumped Mari, as well as Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria and Ms. V’s Hot Girl Summer by A.H. Cunningham.
This year marked the fourth iteration of the International Black Writers Festival, which was held at Howard University and ran from September 30th to October 2nd.
There’s a photography exhibit on the Black Arts Movement, which birthed books like John A. Williams’s The Man Who Cried I Am and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
The festival took place at Valley High School and had live music, books by Latino authors, and lowriders. In other words, a time was had.
Philadelphia’s first Latin American Book Fair was in 2019. In 2025, the weekend-long event brought in hundreds of people who came to connect with authors, artists, and book lovers.
Rafael Pabón Ortega, author of Surviving a la Bori, said, “These fairs are an act of resistance and cultural reaffirmation.”
A good chunk of the more than 600 books that have been banned from Afghanistan’s male-only universities were written by women.
A lot of book censorship these past few years has focused on Black history and LGBTQ+ identities, but we are always getting reminded that the purpose of the bans is to uphold white supremacy, which holds no space for anyone who exists outside of it.
I can’t tell you how many book adaptations I’ve actually been excited about that I end up never hearing about again. Black Fiction University on Substack has a solution to that, though.
In their latest post, they explain the adaptation process, show us how we the readers/viewers can help, and give a few specific books that have been optioned for adaptation for us to support, which include S.A. Cosby’s Southern Noir thrillers (like All the Sinners Bleed and King of Ashes), Kayvion Lewis’s Thieves’ Gambit (which would be such a fun Ocean’s Elevensy vibe), and Kennedy Ryan’s bestselling Skyland romance series (Before I Let Go and This Could Be Us).
It’s run by mother-daughter duo Murphy-Washington and her freshman daughter, Breya Jackson, and will feature titles that highlight the history of Black and Indigenous communities.
Murphy-Washington said, “Because Black and Indigenous communities were not only feeling the brunt of the attacks on culturally diverse literature, but have also historically had to fight for access to knowledge, I wanted to center literature that spoke to that struggle. I wanted to focus not only on the trials our communities have to overcome, but the triumphs and innovation that are born out of our resistance.”
The People’s Bookstore had its first event on September 6th at Beautywood Books in Arkansas.
Not only did Tiffany Dockery use her 401(k) to open a bookstore and wine bar specifically for Black lesbians, she did so in the gentrified neighborhood of Bed-Stuy, which has seen droves and droves of Black residents because of high rents and a lack of housing for the last 15 years.
A portrait of Dockery’s grandmother, Gladys, hangs in the bookstore, which Dockery hopes will fortify the spirit of the community.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai has been nominated for the Booker Prize. It follows two Indian families that become intertwined through the years, over continents, and through love and loss. NPR’s review of the 700-page tome calls it “a terrific, tangled love story.”
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