7 Books By Black Canadian Authors That Deserve A Permanent Spot On Your Bookshelf

They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life, And Growing Up by Eternity Martis

This national bestseller by Eternity Martis shares what it's like to be a student of colour when almost everyone else on campus is white.

"A booksmart kid from Toronto, Eternity Martis was excited to move away to Western University for her undergraduate degree," says Penguin Random House Canada.

"But as one of the few Black students there, she soon discovered that the campus experiences she'd seen in movies were far more complex in reality."

eat salt | gaze at the ocean by Junie Désil

According to her website, Juni Désil was born in Montreal, raised in Winnipeg and now currently lives in Vancouver.

"eat salt | gaze at the ocean explores the themes of Black sovereignty, Haitian sovereignty, and Black lives, using the original Haitian zombie as a metaphor for the condition and treatment of Black bodies," says Talonbooks of the book of poetry.

"Interspersed with textual representations of zombies, Haitian society, and historical policies is the author’s personal narrative of growing up Black and Haitian of immigrant parents on stolen Indigenous Lands."

I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You by David Chariandy

According to Ryerson, David Chariandy was raised in Toronto and currently lives in Vancouver, where he teaches at Simon Fraser University.

When his three-year-old asked him about a moment of bigotry that went ignored, he began wondering how he would discuss race and politics with her.

"A decade later, in a newly heated era of both struggle and divisions, he writes a letter to his now thirteen-year-old daughter," says Penguin Random House Canada of his book.

"David is the son of Black and South Asian migrants from Trinidad, and he draws upon his personal and ancestral past, including the legacies of slavery, indenture, and immigration, as well as the experiences of growing up a visible minority within the land of one's birth."

Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging by Tessa McWatt

McWatt was born in Guyana and grew up in Toronto, according to CBC. Her heritage is Scottish, English, French, Portuguese, Indian, Amerindian, African and Chinese, which she writes about in her moving memoir.

"Tessa McWatt has been called Susie Wong, Pocahontas and 'black b*tch,' and has been judged not black enough by people who assume she straightens her hair," says Penguin Random House Canada.

"Now, through a close examination of her own body--nose, lips, hair, skin, eyes, ass, bones and blood--which holds up a mirror to the way culture reads all bodies, she asks why we persist in thinking in terms of race today when racism is killing us."

Ties That Tether by Jane Igharo

Jane Abieyuwa Igharo was born in Nigeria and immigrated to Canada at the age of twelve, according to Penguin Random House.

"When a Nigerian woman falls for a man she knows will break her mother’s heart, she must choose between love and her family," the publisher says of the fictional novel.

"At twelve years old, Azere promised her dying father she would marry a Nigerian man and preserve her culture, even after immigrating to Canada. Her mother has been vigilant about helping—well forcing—her to stay within the Nigerian dating pool ever since," says the book's description.

"But when another match-made-by-mom goes wrong, Azere ends up at a bar, enjoying the company and later sharing the bed of Rafael Castellano, a man who is tall, handsome, and…white."

Willie by Willie O'Ree with Michael McKinley

Willie O'Ree was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, according to the NHL, and in his memoir, he shares how he became the League's first Black player.

"On January 18, 1958 Willie O'Ree was finally called up to the NHL after years of toiling in the minors, joining the Boston Bruins," says Penguin Random House Canada.

"And when he stepped out onto the ice against the Montreal Canadiens, not only did he fulfil the childhood dream he shared with so many other Canadian kids, he did something that had never been done before: He broke hockey's colour barrier--just as his hero, Jackie Robinson, had done for baseball."

Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

Ekwuyasi is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria, who moved to Halifax in 2013, according to New Canadian Media.

Her website says that her work explores themes of "faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging."

"An intergenerational saga about three Nigerian women: a novel about food, family, and forgiveness," says Arsenal Pulp Press of her book.

"Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story of choices and their consequences, of motherhood, of the malleable line between the spirit and the mind, of finding new homes and mending old ones, of voracious appetites, of queer love, of friendship, faith, and above all, family."