"From the Dark Tower" is a poem by American author Countee Cullen detailing the struggle of Black individuals to receive recognition for their work. Originally published in 1927, the poem appeared in Cullen's second collection, Copper Sun. Cullen...

“Yet Do I Marvel” was published in Countee Cullen’s first and most famous poetry collection, Color (1925). At the time, he was just twenty-two years old. Alongside “Heritage” and “Incident,” this poem is one of Cullen's best-known. As a perfectly...

Natasha Trethewey (1966-) is one of the most celebrated contemporary American poets of the last twenty years. Her poetry is recognized for its formal inventiveness and deep explorations of the legacy of race and prejudice in American history. She...

"Saturday's Child" is a poem by American writer Countee Cullen about economic and racial inequality. Originally published in 1925, the poem appeared in Cullen's first collection, Color. Cullen claimed to be born in Louisville, Kentucky, though...

Another Country is a novel by noted American author James Baldwin, first published in 1962 by Dial Press. It took Baldwin over thirteen years to write, and he finished it in Istanbul on a trip he had taken to break out of his creative stalemate.

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All American Boys is a young-adult novel, co-written by American authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely and published in 2015. They were motivated to write the book after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri by a white police officer...

E. Lockhart's We Were Liars is a young-adult novel about Cadence Sinclair Eastman, a privileged teenager whose carefree summers at her grandfather's private island are disrupted by a traumatic accident she can't recall. After returning to the...

“Truth” is a short poem by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Often referred to as the father of English literature, Chaucer is best known today for The Canterbury Tales, a sequence of tales told by pilgrims fleeing the plague. However, during his...

“Prayer Before Birth” is a poem written by Irish poet Louis MacNeice in 1944, published as the first poem in his collection Springboard. In the poem, MacNeice expresses concerns about the ongoing conflict of World War II. "Prayer Before Birth"...

“A Country Doctor” was initially published in its original German in Franz Kafka’s collection of stories Ein Landartz: Kleine Erzählungen in 1919. An English translation first appeared in the 1945 in the volume The Country Doctor: A Collection of...

Meera Syal’s 1996 debut novel, Anita and Me, is the coming-of-age story of nine-year-old Meena Kumar, a drama-seeking, pop-song-singing, slime-trail-extolling, British-Indian school girl.

In part inspired by Meera Syal’s upbringing in the West...

Published in 1999 in Great Britain by Indian author Anita Desai, the novel is set in two countries, India and the United States, and tells the story of a sister, Uma, and her brother, Arun. Uma, an unmarried woman, endeavors to eke out a life for...

“To Rosamond” is a love poem written by the medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer is best known for his long-form poems, especially The Canterbury Tales. At three short stanzas, "To Rosamond" is strikingly brief in comparison. However,...

"Myth" is a poem by American author Natasha Trethewey that uses an unusual structure to retell the story of Orpheus. Originally published in 2006, the poem appeared as part of her collection Native Guard, which received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for...

"Incident" is a poem by America writer Natasha Trethewey that recounts an unsettling story told by a family every year. The poem was originally published as part of her 2006 collection, Native Guard, which went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize for...

“Native Guard” is a sonnet sequence by American poet Natasha Trethewey about a member of the Louisiana Native Guard, one of the first Black regiments to serve in the U.S. military. The poem is from her collection of the same name, Native Guard,...

"Backwards" is a poem by writer Warsan Shire about familial strife and the desire to reverse time. First published in 2011 by flipped eye publishing, the poem appeared in Shire's collection Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth. Shire is a poet and...

The Rainbow is a novel as difficult as it is rewarding. At times, the intergenerational saga of the Brangwen family may seem tedious and over-stuffed with characters, many of whom share the same names. Yet in equal measure, Lawrence presents...