This list of essential readings on the Black experience in Canada, is by no means complete. Nor should these authors and their writing only be trotted out only when our country is grappling with immediate anti-Black police violence and grief around Black death. These authors and these works deserve to be discussed, celebrated and studied all the time. I would encourage anyone seeking out these books to buy them from Black-owned or independent bookstores, as well as your local library.






The Hanging of Angélique, Afua Cooper, 2011. Marie-Joseph Angélique was an enslaved Black woman convicted of starting a fire that raged through Montreal in 1734. She was subsequently executed, and her story went largely unknown—until a decade ago, when Cooper released this now-classic book.–BQ

The Black Prairie Archives, ed. Karina Vernon, 2020. Collective evidence of an enduring Black presence in Canada’s West exists. Included here are the letters of a 19th-century Alberta rancher, recollections from a 1950s Winnipeg playwright, an excerpt from Esi Edugyan’s award-winning Washington Black and much more.–DB

There’s Something in the Water, Ingrid Waldron, 2018. Inspiring an Elliot Page-backed Netflix doc of the same name, this book sheds light on the history of environmental racism across Nova Scotia and Canada, and how it has shaped the health of Black and Indigenous communities.–BQ
Originally published June 2020. Updated February 2021 with additional titles.
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