Gone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea." This historical novel features a coming-of-age story, with the title taken from the poem "Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae", written by Ernest Dowson.
Kate Chopin was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald, and she is among the most frequently read and recognized writers of Louisiana Creole heritage. She is best known today for her 1899 novel The Awakening.
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".
Mandingo is a 1975 American historical melodrama film that focuses on the Atlantic slave trade in the Antebellum South. The film's title refers to the Mandinka people, who are referred to as "Mandingos", and described as being good slaves for fighting matches. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis for Paramount Pictures, the film was directed by Richard Fleischer. The screenplay, by Norman Wexler, was adapted from the 1957 novel Mandingo by Kyle Onstott, and the 1961 play Mandingo by Jack Kirkland.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a 1971 novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The story depicts the struggles of Black people as seen through the eyes of the narrator, a woman named Jane Pittman. She tells of the major events of her life from the time she was a young slave girl in the American South at the end of the Civil War.
Ariel Schrag is an American cartoonist and television writer who achieved critical recognition at an early age for her autobiographical comics. Her novel Adam provoked controversy with its theme of a heterosexual teenage boy becoming drawn into the LGBTQ community of New York. Schrag accepts the label of ‘dyke comic book artist’.
Frances Parkinson Keyes was an American author who wrote about her life as the wife of a U.S. Senator and novels set in New England, Louisiana, and Europe. A convert to Roman Catholicism, her later works frequently featured Catholic themes and beliefs. Her last name rhymes with "eyes," not "keys."
Susan Straight is an American writer. She was a National Book Award finalist for the novel Highwire Moon in 2001.
Kindred (1979) is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. Widely popular, it has frequently been chosen as a text by community-wide reading programs and book organizations, and for high school and college courses.
Joan Cooper, known by her pen name, J. California Cooper, was an American playwright and author. She wrote 17 plays and was named Black Playwright of the Year in 1978 for her play Strangers. Cooper also received an American Book Award in 1989, a James Baldwin Writing Award (1988), and a Literary Lion Award (1988) from the American Library Association.
Band of Angels is a 1957 American psychological drama film set in the American South before and during the American Civil War, based on the 1955 novel of the same title by Robert Penn Warren. It starred Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo and Sidney Poitier. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh.
Twelve Years a Slave is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details himself being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before he was able to secretly get information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.
Amity Gaige is an American novelist, known for her books O My Darling, The Folded World, Schroder, and Sea Wife. She is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction. She is currently Lecturer in English at Yale University.
The Book of Night Women is a 2009 novel by Jamaican author Marlon James. The book was first published in hardback on February 19, 2009, by Riverhead Books. The story follows Lilith, a young woman born into slavery, who challenges the boundaries of what is expected of her.
The Nightingale (2015) is a historical fiction novel by American author Kristin Hannah published by St. Martin's Press. The book tells the story of two sisters in France during World War II and their struggle to survive and resist the German occupation there.
Queen Sugar is the debut novel of American writer Natalie Baszile, published by Penguin in 2014. Set in contemporary Louisiana, it tells the story of Charley Bordelon, a young African-American widow from Los Angeles who moves to a rural town to manage a sugarcane farm she had unexpectedly inherited there from her father.
Mildred Pitts Walter is an American children's book writer, known for her works featuring African-American protagonists. Walter has written over 20 books for young readers, including fiction and nonfiction. Several of her books have won or been named to the honor list of the Coretta Scott King Awards. A native of Louisiana who later moved to Denver, Walter was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. She published her autobiography, Something Inside So Strong: Life in Pursuit of Choice, Courage, and Change, in 2019.
Emancipation is a 2022 American historical action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by William N. Collage, and co-produced by Will Smith, who stars as a runaway slave headed for Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the 1860s, after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery in secessionist Confederate states, surviving the swamps while being chased by slave catchers and their dogs. Ben Foster stars as a ruthless slave hunter and Charmaine Bingwa as an enslaved wife and mother.
Freshwater is a 2018 autobiographical fiction novel by Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi. Emezi's debut novel, it tells the story of Ada, a girl with multiple ogbanje dwelling inside her. A TV series based on the novel is under development by FX.
Sue Eakin (1918–2009) was an American history professor at Louisiana State University of Alexandria. She received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and was made a Fellow of American Association of University Women. Eakin researched the story of Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, and published a version of the book that corrected historical inaccuracies.
