Search Results: Authors starting with S from Oasis in the Diaspora

Random House Publishing Group, 2008. 1st. Pristine. “Seven is the new urban mercenary stealing hearts. You gotta love her!”–Chunichi, the Urban Diva, author of the Gangster’s Girl seriesBilal Cunningham has grown up in Richmond, Virginia’s meanest projects. His mother offers him little love but takes whatever cash Bilal can make to feed her alcohol-fueled life and the men she shares her bed with. Instead of drugs and drink, Bilal devours Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, and the works of other poets, which he can recite verbatim. But when his beloved little brother, Keon, is killed in a shoot-out, Bilal’s straitlaced life goes awry.Vengeance lands Bilal in jail for seven years, and when he comes out he’s drawn to the streets. By becoming Richmond’s top cocaine kingpin, Bilal has all the money he could ever want, though he knows to steer clear of the powder himself. But sexy Starr, the girl he’s loved since childhood, can’t quite keep clean. Their tumultuous relationship gets even… Read More

Readers International, 1986. Good. These stories from the closing days of apartheid rule in South Africa won the Noma Award, Africa's highest literary award, and announced Njabulo Ndebele as an assured and impressive literary voice. He has gone on to become one of the most powerful voices for cultural freedom on the whole of the African continent today. Ndebele evokes township life with humor and subtlety, rejecting the image of black South Africans as victims and focusing on the complexity and fierce energy of their lives. "Our literature," says Ndebele, "ought to seek to move away from an easy preoccupation with demonstrating the obvious existence of oppression. It exists. The task is to explore how and why people can survive under such harsh conditions." About Njabulo Ndebele: now Chancellor of Witwatersrand University in South Africa. Ndebele began publishing these stories from exile in Lesotho during the 1980s. Ndebele is now recognised as a major voice in South Africa's cultural life. This… Read More

HarperCollins, 2003. When Noire, a hip, Afro-wearing Ph.D. student, walks into Brown Betty Books, her righteousness kicks into overdrive amid the self-identified "talented tenth" who wear their double degrees and five-hundred-dollar shoes like badges of honor. And then Innocent walks in, sits down beside her, and turns her on her head. A dashing, well-heeled investment banker originally from Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, Innocent seems interested in her ... but he's one of them.Before meeting him, Noire shunned the "bourgie" world of black monied cosmopolitans like Innocent, opting instead for socially conscious -- but economically challenged -- artists and urban intellectuals. Their mutual attraction blossoms into lust and eventually love, but it lives in the shifting sands of personal beliefs and professional ambitions that are often at odds.Set in present-day New York City with jaunts to Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean, A Love Noire is the story of an unlikely couple that struggles to… Read More

Crown Publishers, 2003. 1st. Pristine. 1. The Oakland we see in the novel is a muddle of contradictions: poverty, devastation, cynicism, and a gory drug epidemic, mingled with deep blue lakes, gentle mountains, gorgeous skies, and the lights of San Francisco and Marin twinkling in the distance like a promise. Smith treats this landscape almost as a third central character in the story. What relationship does each sister have with this “character”? Does it change? How does it affect their decisions? 2. The two sisters have very different requirements for inner peace. Paige seems invested in the idea of justice, and often demands a clear delineation between good and bad. She is able to commit facts to memory “as long as they come in the form of a story in which the right people halfway triumph.” Pinch, on the other hand, seems more interested in letting go and smoothing over. She says “Not looking back–that’s still my definition of joy.” How do these differences affect each… Read More

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006. 1st. Fair. The New York Times hailed Martha Southgate's previous novel, The Fall of Rome, as "powerful," O, the Oprah Magazine called it "quietly accomplished," and Essence lauded it as "a bracingly honest look at race, class, and self-acceptance." With Third Girl from the Left, Southgate brings her acute vision and emotional scope to a larger canvas. This enormously entertaining yet serious novel tells a story of African-American women struggling against all odds to express what lies deepest in their hearts. Like Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay or E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime, it ranges freely through time, fact, and fiction to weave an enthralling story about history and art and their place in the lives of three women. "My mother believed in the power of movies and the people in them to change a life, to change her life." So explains Tamara, daughter of Angela, granddaughter of Mildred - the three women whose lives are portrayed in… Read More

Strebor Books, 2009. 1st. Pristine. An intriguing psychological journey filled with memorable cameos of characters from The Office Girls, unforgettable erotic encounters and a twisted yet realistic story line.Psychologist Dr. Johnny Forrester is a former sex addict and brother to Michael Forrester, the steamy protagonist from Sylvester Stephens's previous bestseller The Office Girls. Desperate to understand the minds of his five severely disturbed female patients and validate himself as a doctor, Johnny repeatedly violates the sacred boundary that protects the doctor-patient relationship.He becomes emotionally involved with a woman accused of abusing her child and tolerates her blatant manipulation of him. Then he allows another patient, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and Nobel Prize laureate, to take him under her wing as her submissive protégé. Most shockingly, he has an adulterous affair with one of his lusty female patients. When two of these women are murdered—including his lover—Johnny is… Read More

Simon and Schuster, 2009. 1. Fine. Imagine This is the sequel to Vickie Stringer's bestselling Let That Be the Reason, her stunning debut novel based on life as she knew it in the shocking underworld of the sex and drug trade.Vickie Stringer has gained a legion of fans for her portrayal of Pamela, a.k.a. Carmen, a woman who had it all but lost out when the love of her life left her penniless and alone to raise their son. Pamela refuses to remain powerless, though. She pulls herself up, becomes a major hustler in the street game, gains independence, and makes big money -- but the consequences are more dreadful than she ever imagined.Imagine This continues the saga of Pamela as she does jail time and has to decide who she really is: Pamela, a woman who, more than anything, loves her son and wants to be there to raise him; or Carmen, the ruthless baller, who does the crime, serves the time, and honors, at any expense, the code of the street. Softcover
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Simon and Schuster, 2007. 1st. Fine. From the "queen of urban fiction" (Publishers Weekly), Vicki Stringer, comes a scorching tale of love, lies, loss, and the indomitable spirit of a woman scorned. Mischievous and manipulative, eighteen-year-old Red is an expert at deception with a provocative femininity. She employs her dirty ways - even faking a pregnancy with her boyfriend - to win a closet full of Gucci bags, a deluxe condominium full of baby accessories, a new car, and a book deal. But when one of Red's scams backfires and she winds up truly pregnant by her inmate ex-boyfriend, Bacon, she finds herself in more trouble than she's ever known. The drama truly unravels when Red's picture-perfect cons fall apart due to the power of - surprisingly - love. Includes publisher ephemera
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Atria Books, 2010. 1st. Fine. Following the phenomenal success of Essence bestsellers Dirty Red and Still Dirty, Vickie M. Stringer takes readers on another bumpy ride in Dirtier Than Ever with Red, Bacon, and Q—the crazy love-hate triangle who makes the series a favorite among urban fiction fans.   Q wished that Bacon had killed Red when he had the chance. Red knew that Q’s career as a hustler was over and he was counting on starting a new legit business with the money he had made. He had once believed her when she promised that the money didn’t mean a thing and she would give it all up to be with him.   Bacon returns from prison and suddenly Q is left for dead. With Q out of the picture, Bacon now has Red to himself. His sights are set on being the top hustler with Red by his side. He believes Red has fi nally changed when she reveals the truth about her past.   But all comes to a head when the snooping detective, Thomas, suspects Red’s involvement in Q’s getting shot and the… Read More