Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Their first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway,...

"A stunning collection of fiction, diary entries, screenplays and scripts by the brilliant African-American artist and filmmaker"-- Provided by publisher.

"A masterful story collection--thirteen years in the making--from National Book Award winner Charles Johnson, showcasing the incredible range and resonant voice of this American treasure"--

Welcome to Braggsville. The city that love built in the heart of Georgia. Population 712. Born and raised in the heart of old Dixie, D'Aron Davenport finds himself in unfamiliar territory his freshman year at UC Berkeley. Caught between the prosaid values of his rural hometown and the intellectualized multicultural cosmopolitanism of "Berzerkeley," the nineteen year-old white kid is uncertain about his place, until one disastrous party brings him...

"Two familes from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier,...

The Butler family has had their share of trials, as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest, but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband Proctor are arrested, and in...

"Foreign Gods, Inc., tells the story of Ike, a New York-based Nigerian cab driver who sets out to steal the statue of an ancient war deity from his home village and sell it to a New York gallery"--Provided by publisher.

"Visiting Lagos after many years away, Teju Cole's unnamed narrator rediscovers his hometown as both a foreigner and a local. A young writer uncertain of what he wants to say, the man moves through tableaus of life in one of the most dynamic cities in the world: he hears the muezzin's call to prayer in the early morning light, and listens to John Coltrane during the late afternoon heat. He witnesses teenagers diligently perpetrating e-mail frauds...

"All is fair in love and lust in ... [this] tale of two brothers, four women, and the business of desire"-- Provided by publisher. Unlike their younger brother Andre, whose star as a comedian is rising, neither Dwayne nor Brick Duquesne is having luck with his career--and they're unluckier still in love. Former child star Dwayne has just been fired from his latest acting role and barely has enough money to get by after paying child support to his...