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The ZORA Canon, created by the online publication ZORA (named for Zora Neale Hurston), is a list of the 100 masterworks written by African American women spanning 160 years, from 1859 to 2019.
The ZORA Canon is divided into sections from pre-emancipation to the present. It includes fiction and nonfiction, novels, plays, anthologies and poetry collections, and ranges in subject matter from the historical to the personal (and sometimes both at once).
The sections are as follows:
The ZORA Canon is divided into sections from pre-emancipation to the present. It includes fiction and nonfiction, novels, plays, anthologies and poetry collections, and ranges in subject matter from the historical to the personal (and sometimes both at once).
The sections are as follows:
- A Fight for Our Humanity (1859–1900)
- A Rebirth of the Arts (1924–1953)
- Civil Rights & Black Power (1959–1975)
- The Strength of Self Worth (1976–1999)
- A Radical Future (2000–2010)
- A New Black Golden Age (2011–2019)
Taken together, the works don't just make up a novel canon; they form a revealing mosaic of the Black American experience during the time period.
Contributing panelists include:
- Malaika Adero, a former vice president and senior editor for Atria Books at Simon & Schuster
- Margo Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize–winning critic and professor
- Ayana Mathis, a professor and New York Times bestselling author
- Tressie McMillan Cottom, an author and sociologist
- Imani Perry, an author and professor of African American studies
- Jesmyn Ward, an author and English professor
Synopses provided by ZORA Editors.
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