The Greatest Books of All Time on Racism

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
184 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
265 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
308 The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison 1970 American English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
353 Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin 1953 American English
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
443 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
500 Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O'Connor 1965 American English
513 Kindred Octavia E. Butler 1979 American English
521 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou 1969 American English
557 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
640 Black Boy Richard Wright 1945 American English
668 Rabbit Redux John Updike 1971 American English
716 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
749 The Fire Next Time James Baldwin 1963 American English
770 The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2016 American English
788 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
819 Burmese Days George Orwell 1934 British English
837 The Sellout Paul Beatty 2015 American English
906 Up from Slavery Booker T. Washington 1901 American English
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
913 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
918 The Plot Against America Philip Roth 2004 American English
928 Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell 1932 American English
989 The Grass Is Singing Doris May Lessing 1950 British English
989 The Lonely Londoners Sam Selvon 1956 Trinidadian English
1002 Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko 1977 American English
1003 A Dry White Season Andre Brink 1979 South African Afrikaans
1119 The Street Ann Petry 1946 American English
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
1222 Studs Lonigan James T. Farrell 1932 American English
1225 Untouchable Mulk Raj Anand 1935 Indian English
1308 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Mildred D. Taylor 1976 American English
1320 Devil in a Blue Dress Walter Mosley 1990 American English
1322 A Question of Power Bessie Head 1973 Botswanan English
1376 Tales of the South Pacific James A. Michener 1947 American English
1445 Faceless Killers Henning Mankell 1991 Swedish Swedish
1462 An American Dilemma Gunnar Myrdal 1944 Swedish English
1513 The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor 1982 American English
1541 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
1620 Sister Outsider Audre Lorde 1984 American English
1650 Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward 2017 American English
1701 The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander 2010 American English
1752 Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward 2013 American English
1756 Strange Fruit Lillian Smith 1944 American English
1801 A Time To Kill John Grisham 1989 American English
1852 July's People Nadine Gordimer 1981 South African English
1860 Notebook Of A Return To The Native Land Aimé Césaire 1939 French French
1861 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
1878 East Goes West Younghill Kang 1937 American English
1925 The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano Olaudah Equiano 1789 African English
1937 Ask The Dust John Fante 1939 American English
2003 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs 1861 American English
2023 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
2075 Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson 1994 American English
2172 Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman 2001 British English
2207 Dreams from My Father Barack Obama 1995 American English
2269 The Jewel In The Crown Paul Scott 1966 British English
2273 The Wretched of the Earth Frantz Fanon 1961 Algerian French
2292 The Big Nowhere James Ellroy 1988 American English
2352 The Salt Eaters Toni Cade Bambara 1980 American English
2363 Our Nig Harriet E. Wilson 1859 American English
2371 The Power of One Bryce Courtenay 1989 Australian English
2430 The Intuitionist Colson Whitehead 1999 American English
2445 Pudd'nhead Wilson Mark Twain 1894 American English
2487 Small Island Andrea Levy 2004 British English
2493 A Lesson Before Dying Ernest J. Gaines 1993 American English
2504 Homegoing Yaa Gyasi 2016 Ghanaian English
2586 A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn 1980 American English
2636 An American Marriage Tayari Jones 2018 American English
2651 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie 2007 American English
2666 The Mismeasure of Man Stephen Jay Gould 1981 American English
2709 The Help Kathryn Stockett 2009 American English
2858 A Mercy Toni Morrison 2008 American English
2874 Boyhood J. M. Coetzee 1997 South African English
2898 Indigo Beverly Jenkins 1996 American English
2984 Blind Man with a Pistol Chester Himes 1969 American English
2983 Tent of Miracles Jorge Amado 1969 Brazilian Portuguese
2992 Frederick Douglass David W. Blight 2018 American English
3098 Second-class Citizen Buchi Emecheta 1974 Nigerian English
3099 Why We Can't Wait Martin Luther King 1964 American English
3155 Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin 1955 American English
3167 Paris Trout Pete Dexter 1988 American English
3217 Brown Girl Dreaming Jacqueline Woodson 2014 American English
3231 This Bridge Called My Back Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa 1981 American English
3258 Killers Of The Flower Moon David Grann 2017 American English
3281 The Hate U Give Angie Thomas 2017 American English
3301 The Red Record Ida B. Wells 1895 American English
3324 House in the Uplands Erskine Caldwell 1946 American English
3478 American Born Chinese Gene Luen Yang 2006 American English
3553 The Revolt Of The Cockroach People Oscar Zeta Acosta 1973 American English
3557 The Black Jacobins C. L. R. James 1938 British English
3590 Just Mercy Bryan Stevenson 2014 American English
3919 Staying Power Peter Fryer 1984 British English
3948 Antériorité Des Civilisations Nègres Cheikh Anta Diop 1954 Senegalese French
3952 Clotel William Wells Brown 1853 American English
4177 The Mind of the South W. J. Cash 1941 American English
4203 Ain't I A Woman? bell hooks 1981 American English
4206 The Colonizer and the Colonized Albert Memmi 1957 French French
4286 Boy's Life Robert R. McCammon 1991 American English
4299 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Fannie Flagg 1987 American English
4447 Ellen Foster Kaye Gibbons 1987 American English
4504 Killers of the Dream Lillian Smith 1949 American English
4557 The Blood Knot Athol Fugard 1961 South African English
4590 The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead 2019 American English
4619 Deacon King Kong James McBride 2020 American English
4724 The Negro Caravan Sterling Allen Brown, Arthur Paul Davis, Ulysses Lee 1941 American English
4799 If Beale Street Could Talk James Baldwin 1974 American English
4801 Home to Harlem Claude McKay 1928 American English