Memoirs and Novels by Queer Authors of Color

A moving memoir about growing up Black and gay in rural Ohio. Framing his life story around the Gwendolyn Brooks poem “We Real Cool,” Brian Broome brilliantly calls out destructive stereotypes about masculinity. A heart wrenching, intimate look at an outsider's search for a space to be his authentic self.

Poet Saeed Jones lays bare the struggle of growing up both gay and Black in Texas. His prose evokes these painful memories with just the right amount of distance to show the hope beyond the otherwise bleak circumstances. “How We Fight for Our Lives” won the 2020 Lambda Award for best Gay Memoir/Biography.

Writer and producer Janet Mock’s memoir of coming out as transgender is an urgent read right now, as the higher levels of discrimination and violence committed against trans women of color has made national headlines. Mock provides a path to a better tomorrow.

Go beyond the French tuck in this memoir by the beloved Fab Five stylist. From growing up as one of few families of color in a small town in England to becoming an icon for a new generation of Queer Eye viewers, his unique story is as heartwarming as an episode of the show.

Heartfelt and heartbreaking, Michael Arceneaux’s essays explore his experiences as a gay, Black, Catholic Southerner, including how he set about, in his words, “unlearning every damaging thing I’ve seen and heard about my identity.” From praying to Jesus to “cure” him of homosexuality and being recruited for the priesthood, to his love of Beyoncé and coming out to his mom, this is a bold collection on the power of self-acceptance.

Sarah Broom’s breathtaking memoir made countless best-books-of-the-year lists when it came out in 2019, including Barack Obama’s and The New York Times’ top 10. Broom tells the story of her family through the framework of their beloved yellow house in a New Orleans neighborhood you never see in travel guides. You’ll feel the humidity and hear the Mississippi rising through her evocative writing, as Broom chronicles how her family rides out Hurricane Katrina — and generations of social injustices.

Alexander Chee’s book is mostly memoir mixed with morsels of writing tutorial as he attempts to both unravel and connect all the disparate parts that shape our identities. Chee’s observations as a mixed-race gay man who grew up with sexual abuse provide a powerful and clear perspective.

Karamo Brown tells the uplifting story of how he overcame struggles with drugs and alcohol, abuse, racism, homophobia, and more to become the inspirational “Culture Expert” on Netflix’s beloved “Queer Eye.” Karamo’s commitment to strength through lifelong learning and self-reflection radiates throughout his inspiring memoir.

Anuradha Bhagwati’s life is full of twists and turns, some purposeful and others punishing: After graduating from Yale, she decided to join the Marines, defying the expectations and wishes of her Indian parents. From there, she found a strength previously unknown to her, while also enduring flagrant sexism as one of the few female members of the Marines. Bhagwati’s life is fascinating, and her work as an activist after leaving the service has led to historic changes for women serving in the military.

T Kira Madden was raised by a Chinese Hawaiian mother and a Jewish father in Boca Raton, Florida, and she quickly figured out that she was queer to boot. In her memoir, she reveals just how confining and heavy the boxes we try to shove ourselves (and each other) in are, despite the vast diversity of experiences.

Carmen Maria Machado’s collection of stories is so wonderfully weird. Genre-bending, uncanny, and often very funny, each of these unusual stories has something poignant to say about being a person and about being an artist, and in particular about what it’s like inhabiting a female body.

This collection of short stories from bisexual author Roxane Gay explores the trials of womanhood, from painfully real depictions of violence to metaphorical, fairytale-like vignettes about vulnerability. Some stories are more painful to read than others, but there’s a deep love and tenderness for all of the difficult women that shines through.

Chinelo Okparanta draws from Nigerian folktales and her own mother’s experience of her native country’s 1967 civil war in this striking debut novel. Okparanta tells the story of Ijeoma, a young girl who is not only forced to come of age in war-torn Nigeria, but also struggles to come to terms with her own sexuality after she discovers she has feelings for another girl. NPR calls this 2016 Lambda Literary Award winner “so immersive that even readers who have nothing in common with Ijeoma will feel like they’ve lived her experience,” and recommends that you “plan your schedule around this binge read!”

Rivers Solomon, a Black, queer, nonbinary author, imagines the antebellum South, but set on a starship in their acclaimed novel. In the tradition of Octavia Butler, the ship hurtles through space toward a mysterious “promised land,” but passengers onboard are segregated by race. With people of color brutally enslaved on the lower decks, the protagonist (described by Soloman as “an intersex butch lesbian, but maybe agender,” in an interview with the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom) sees a chance to rise up against the oppressors.

Solomon’s “The Deep” is based on a Hugo Award-nominated song from Clipping, the rap group headed by Daveed Diggs. It’s about a group of mermaid-like people who are descended from pregnant slaves who perished when they were tossed overboard crossing the Atlantic. This Lammy Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror winner defines the word haunting.

This 2016 National Book Award finalist by beloved (and queer) author Jacqueline Woodson has been compared to contemporary classics like “The Bluest Eye,” “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” and “The House on Mango Street.” Vanity Fair raved: “In Woodson’s soaring choral poem of a novel … four young friends … navigate the perils of adolescence, mean streets, and haunted memory in 1970s Brooklyn, all while dreaming of escape.”

The roots of bigotry and hate are deep and entangled. Uzodinma Iweala pinpoints the intersections of homophobia, racial relations, generational divides, and cultural differences in the United States and Nigeria in this devastating novel.

If you’re a fan of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” you might’ve heard the expression “category is.” (RuPaul even wrote a song called “Category Is!”) This phrase hails from the underground ballroom scenes of the 1980s and early ’90s, which is where and when “The House of Impossible Beauties” takes place. A heartbreaking, yet vibrant, story with the drag culture in 1980s Harlem at its heart.

It took decades for an English translation of this cult classic novel from China to be published, but now this important work of queer literature is available to a whole new audience. “Beijing Comrades” follows a traditional forbidden love formula while also critiquing homophobia and governmental policies in the world’s most populous country.

Two sisters from a cursed family. One destined to become a swan. Both fiercely devoted to protecting the other from that fate. In this magical YA novel, author Anna-Marie McLemore reimagines a queer Swan Lake and Snow White woven together with Latinx folklore, all while reveling in the love of family, both the kind we are born into and the kind we choose for ourselves.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s stunning novel is a delicate and beautifully written portrayal of the intensity and unruly passion that comes with our formative teenage years. It lives up to the elegance of its cover and mouthful of a title. A visceral reminder of the life-altering effects that happen when you meet that one person: your first love.