The "Books with POC MC's" Recommendations Thread

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Anna L.

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Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard is an Aztec novel with no white people at all. I very much liked it. Don't look at the reviews though. Way too many people complain the authentic deity names are unpronounceable. I guess they wanted the author to rename the entire pantheon just for them.
 

Mr Flibble

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I noticed this thread aggges ago, and while reading my current book I thought of it again

Mothership, Tales of Afrofuturism and Beyond.

It's an absolutely cracking anthology, with more stories than you can shake a stick it. I'm not quite finished yet, but all the MCs so far have been POC. I thoroughly recommend it if you like SFF
 

Kim Fierce

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I just got a book the other day and now I have to look up the title because I forget it. But it's an anthology of short stories all written by people of Chinese origin. Some of the writers live in different countries now, but have Chinese heritage. I'll have to get more details, it has something about Dragons in the title.
 

Roxxsmom

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I finally have my cover for Nadine's Voyage!
And it's going to be released in February instead of April!


It's on my home page: http://kimflowersbooks.weebly.com

Congrats! That's a very nice cover.

To add some titles to the older thread:

Alice Walker was one of my favorite authors when I was growing up. I learned a lot reading her books.

I second the recommendations for Amy Tan.

Isabel Allande. I read the House of the Voices ages ago (on of my co-workers at the time was from Chile and recommended it), and the writing was beautiful (plus I learned about a time in that county's history that they weren't teaching us in college classes back then).

As for purely speculative fiction/fantasy: NK Jemison.
 
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aruna

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I recently read Monsoon Memories by Renita D'Silva and loved it so much I checked out her publisher and in the end signed with them for my up-and-coming e-book!
Here's the cover:
51pshtjTSrL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 

kikazaru

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I generally only read mystery/suspense and I love the "Jim Chee" and "Joe Leaphorn" novels by the late Tony Hillerman. They are both Navajo tribal policemen and the mystery usually has some aspect of tribal culture woven in.

While I really enjoy Walter Mosely's "Easy Rawlins"as MC, I've recently discovered another of his series with "Leonid McGill" both are African American MC's and the books are great - gritty and atmospheric.

I've also read a few in a series by Leslie Glass with "April Woo" a female Chinese NYC police lieutenant. These are fun as well.
 

aruna

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My own novel Of Marriageable Age (VERY multicultural cast) is coming out in digital format next Friday, and we (Publisher and I) are looking for reviewers who would like a free digital copy. If that's you, do send me a pm with your email address!
You can find out more about the book on amazon, goodreads and on my website, see my sig.
 

psyche24

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I would like to add the 'Rivers of London.' series by Ben Aaronovitch. It is an urban fantasy series with an MC with a Nigerian mother. The series also has minor characters who are POC
 

Evaine

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The Rivers of London series is great - but Peter Grant's mother comes from Sierra Leone, not Nigeria.
I also love that the spirit of the River Thames (or at least the bit nearest the sea) was once a Nigerian nurse who threw herself in, and so all the tributaries, her daughters, are also black women.
Ben Aaronovitch gets the Metropolitan Police spot on, too, coppers first and multi-racial second.
 

Putputt

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How did I not know this thread exists! My favs...

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Most of Amy Tan's books
All of Khaled Hosseini's books

MG/YA
Walk Two Moons by ummm...I have no idea and am too lazy to look it up :D
Dualed by Elsie Chapman

Umm...I guess that's all I can think of. :-/
 

Sunflowerrei

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Gosh, it's been ages since anybody updated this thread, huh? *creeps into zombie thread* I have a few more recs.

Our very own SL Huang's short story Hunting Monsters should be in here.

I just finished reading Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni--I'd call it women's fiction maybe, but definitely a coming-of-age themed book with a mostly Indian cast of characters.

Just started reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie---Nigerian lead characters.

Has anybody mentioned Lisa See yet? I read her family history book On Gold Mountain in January (I have a fixation with complicated multiracial family sagas) and her novels all have Chinese characters.

Black Rain--well, it's a translation of a Japanese novel about the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath, so, duh, all the characters are Japanese

Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris is about a white American woman who marries a Japanese-American just as Pearl Harbor is bombed and thus, she and her husband endure Japanese internment.
 

aruna

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I just finished reading Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni--I'd call it women's fiction maybe,
I've read many of her books, and loved them mostly.

Just started reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie---Nigerian lead characters.

Hmmm. Mixed feelings about this one. I MUCH preferred her Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus and even her book of short stories, That Thing around your Neck (even though I don't usually read short stories). Amerikanah was -- I don't know. I just didn't like it much. Apart from that, she's one of my favourite writers!

Has anybody mentioned Lisa See yet? I read her family history book On Gold Mountain in January (I have a fixation with complicated multiracial family sagas) and her novels all have Chinese characters.

Yes. I read and loved Snow Flower and the Secret Fan but hated Shanghai Girls. I have another of her books on my Kindle but am reluctant to start it.


Then there's always my latest, the book you see in my avatar! Only 2 or 3 named white characters in the whole book!

I'd like to recommend Renita d'Silva, whose book Monsoon Memories was so delightful I checked out the publisher and was eventually taken on by them, the turning point in my writing career! She has published two more books since then, and all have great reviews. Indian characters, mostly Indian settings.
 
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Jack McManus

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Fire in Beulah, by Rilla Askew, has Two MC's, one white, one black. A third character, a Freedman midwife, appears at crucial points throughout the story with her own POV. The author has stated she tried to give equal weight to the "three founding races" (her words) of Oklahoma.

The story revolves around Oklahoma's oil boom at the start of the last century, climaxing with a vivid account of the 1921 Tulsa race war.
 

Sunflowerrei

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Corona by Bushra Rehman--a Pakistani-American female first-person MC. It's a contemporary novel, written more as episodic short stories, and I remember really enjoying the humor in it. Plus, some of it takes place in Corona, a neighborhood in Queens, where I'm from.
 

bombergirl69

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Hi, what a wonderful thread. My husband is NA, so we are pretty interested in NA writing.

I am new here and did not see two terrific novels (MCs = POC). One is Yes is Better Than No, a novel about members of a southwestern Indian tribe trying to live in Tucson. It covers the (sometimes) well intentioned,but grossly inappropriate white interactions, particuarly those with social workers, as well as sexploitation issues (one character figures he can land white women if he calls himself "Flaming Arrow", which happens, with an interesting interaction highlighting the whole sexualizing of NAs). Written by a white woman - Byrd Baylor - but is just a fantastic read for anyone interested in racial issues. Written in the 1970s but highly relevant.

Also, anything by James Welsh, who was Blackfeet. His book, Fool's Crow, is a gorgeous young man's coming-of-age story set in the 1870s. Just beautifully written, covers one of two of the massacres and their impact. A sprinkling of white folk but they are all secondary

Of course, anything by Louise Erdrich!

Anyway, really interesting to think about these issues and writing.
 

kevinwaynewilliams

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Alpha Echo

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I didn't read this entire thread, so my apologies if this one has been mentioned already, but I recently read a fantastic, beautifully written novel with POC MCs - The Sweetest Hallelujah, by Elaine Hussey.

It's set back in 1955 and centers around a POC woman - an ex jazz singer - who is dying from cancer and wants to find someone to care for her daughter. She puts an ad in the newspaper, not really hoping for much, but a middle-class white woman finds the ad. Before they know it, their lives are intersecting in ways they never imagined (I can't give it away!!!).

It's simply beautiful. The friendship the two women form brought tears to my eyes more than once.
 

autumnleaf

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I really enjoyed Anita Amirrezvani's historical novels, The Blood of Flowers and Equal to the Sun, set in 16th and 17th century Iran.

Nobody's mention Neil Gaiman's Ananzi Boys yet? Most of the cast are Afro-Caribbean.

Like Aruna, I wasn't crazy about Adiche's Americanah, but I've loved everything else she's written, especially Half of a Yellow Sun. I would also really recommend that you google "adichie danger of a single story" and watch that video: it's an amazing talk.
 

lianna williamson

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I'm going to give a shout for Rick Riordan's MG Kane Chronicles trilogy, about descendants of ancient Egyptian priests dealing with Egyptian gods running amok in the U.S. The MC's are a biracial brother-and-sister pair, who are have very different experiences of being biracial (one "reads" as black to others, while the other reads as white). The siblings' African-American father and uncle are also both characters, the sister's love interest is African-American, and the brother's is middle eastern. All the white folks are bit players.
 
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