10 Memoirs and Essay Collections by Black Women
Originally published by Electric Literature on November 29, 2023
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Gabrielle Union, We’re Going To Need More Wine (2017)
(TW: Sexual Assault) In her first memoir, actress and activist Gabrielle Union takes the opportunity in-between stories of growing up in Nebraska and the Bay Area and becoming a world-famous celebrity and half of an iconic power couple to candidly discuss colorism, divorce, and rape, rarely holding back on the highs and lows of her life and her career. Union’s appeal as a public figure is her openness and her vulnerability, putting readers at ease by sharing her truth and not being afraid to call out all that she sees wrong in Hollywoods and the world writ-large. “You can love what you see in the mirror,” she writes, “but you can’t self-esteem your way out of the way the world treats you.”
Michelle Obama, Becoming (2018)
With nine copies sold per second on the day of its release, former First Lady Michelle Obama’s memoir is one of the bestselling memoirs of all time, and deservedly so. “Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own,” she tells the reader, and in her own words, she tells us not just about the historic journey to the White House, but all of her life that came before it. Her childhood on the South Side of Chicago, her years as a college student at Princeton, her career as a lawyer and associate dean, laying it all out so that we walk with her through her road to discovery, encouraged to consider our lives and impact too.
Mariah Carey, The Meaning of Mariah (2020)
Delightful in some parts, harrowing in others, Grammy-Award winning superstar Mariah Carey finally tells her story because as her father told her, “words have meaning and thus, they have power.” Co-written with Michaela Angela Davis, she describes her early experiences trying to fit in as a light-skinned biracial little girl in Long Island and her early career where her fame and popularity was tainted by an abusive marriage to her record executive first husband. Carey’s story ultimately is a fairytale, in which she saves herself, and the latter half of the book, with the most wonderful thinly-veiled insults is a particular treat.
Viola Davis, Finding Me (2022)
EGOT-winner Viola Davis tells the story of her life, with vivid, detailed descriptions that are at many times difficult to read, but all of which become the experiences that shape her life and the woman she is today. “You don’t have to live in the past,” she writes, and as she shares her journey, she includes advice for others to use as they work through their own challenges, whatever they may be. Her story covers lots of thematic ground, including colorism and childhood poverty, and the stories she tells about her family, her husband, and her career allow for insight that all readers can gain from following her journey.
Read the full and final piece here: https://electricliterature.com/10-contemporary-memoirs-and-essay-collections-by-black-women/
Thanks for sharing this article. I hope to read some of these books this year.