top of page
NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
African American Fiction
December 3, 2024
Mirror Me
Lisa Williamson Rosenberg
Today I talked to Lisa Williamson Rosenberg about Mirror Me (Little a, 2024)
November 26, 2024
Dazzling
Chikodili Emelumadu
Today I talked to Chikodili Emelumadu about Dazzling (Harry N. Abrams, 2023).
October 8, 2024
Blood on the Brain
Esinam Bediako
Today I talked to Esinam Bediako about here novel Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024).
October 24, 2023
Indigo Field
Marjorie Hudson
A sweeping picture of family trauma, Native American and Black history, and the earth’s vengeance on human pettiness. A retired colonel’s wife dies, leaving him alone in a snooty North Carolina senior community. Reba, an elderly Black woman who speaks to the ghosts of her family, takes in the white child whose father killed her beloved niece. The colonel mistakenly causes damage to Reba’s old car and unleashes a torrent of spirits, while his son guards the bones that have been unearthed in what was once “Indian Field.” This is a stunning debut about race relations, land use, history, and memory.
April 18, 2023
Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions
Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi
Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi’s novel Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories (Amistad 2022), is a moving and unforgettable collection of stories that span a lifetime.
September 22, 2020
What You Don't See
Tracy Clark
Cass Raines left the Chicago Police force after a morally bankrupt cop nearly got her killed. Now she runs her own Private Detective agency.
September 8, 2020
Saving Ruby King
Catherine Adel West
Two south side Chicago families are bound together by a violence-infused past. Ruby’s mother, Alice King, has been murdered. Her father, Lebanon King, is an abusive man who endured a terrible childhood.
July 31, 2020
Pale
Edward A. Farmer
It’s 1966, and Bernice’s husband has either died or abandoned her. Her brother Floyd invites her to join him as a servant working for white owners of an old plantation house in Mississippi. Floyd warns Bernice about the housekeeper, Silva, who lives there with her two young sons. The owner and his wife don’t speak much and there seem to be secrets hidden in every corner.
July 27, 2020
The Gone Dead
Chanelle Benz
A decrepit house in Greendale, Mississippi once belonged to Billie James’s father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when she was four years old. Her mother dies of cancer. Then years later, her paternal grandmother dies and leaves Billie the old Mississippi Delta house.
June 30, 2020
Tea by the Sea
Donna Hemans
A new father walks out of the hospital with his day-old baby while the mother recuperates from giving birth. He tells a series of lies and moves houses or countries whenever the truth gets too close. The young, broken-hearted mother devotes herself to searching for her missing daughter.
June 8, 2020
Everywhere You Don’t Belong
Gabriel Bump
In Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin Books, 2020), Gabriel Bump has created an unforgettable debut novel that will sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes pull at your gut.
August 31, 2021
What Passes as Love
Trisha R. Thomas
In 1850, at age six, Dahlia Holt is taken from the only home she knows and moved into the big house to serve her two older sisters. They share a father, who owns the house and its slaves. On her sixteenth birthday, Dahlia gets to dress up in one of the sister’s discarded dresses for a trip to the city. There, she gets separated from her family, and meets a young Englishman who thinks she’s white.
October 27, 2022
Cora's Kitchen
Kimberly Garrett Brown
Cora, who works at Harlem’s 135th Street library, reads a powerful poem by the young Langston Hughes, who begins to offer advice about her own writing. She’s awakened to thoughts about society and the role of women, prejudice, and the plight of Black women.
December 7, 2021
Gone Missing in Harlem
Karla FC Holloway
The Mosbys leave their life in Sedalia within hours after six-year-old Percy loudly notes that his father’s boss has made a mistake in calculating what is owed. Percy’s parents know what would happen if they stayed.
January 18, 2022
What Storm, What Thunder
Myriam J. A. Chancy
At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince.
bottom of page