African/Black Nova Scotian Resources: Home

A stunning tour de force by a celebrated gathering of truthtellers that demands we comprehensively reassess the present and reimagine the future of Blackness in Canada. "AfriCANthology: Perspectives of Black Canadian Poets" brings together some of Canada's most influential dub page, and spoken word poetic voices and gives them space to speak freely about their persona journeys in piercing verse and unapologetic prose.

Multi-Award Winning title including the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of white passengers, ghosts, and his secret love affair. The Sleeping Car Porter brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a queer man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways.

30th anniversary edition
As an adolescent, Cheryl struggled to understand the negative attitudes towards Blackness she and her family encountered, and how she was made to feel an outsider in the only place she ever knew as home. As she explores her ancestry, what comes to light gives her the confidence to claim her rightful place in the Canadian west as a proud Black woman. This beautiful, moving work celebrates the Black experience and Black resiliency on the prairies.

Canada Reads - 2021
Spanning three continents, Butter Honey Pig Bread tells the interconnected stories of three Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. Kambirinachi believes that she is an Ogbanje, or an Abiku, a non-human spirit that plagues a family with misfortune by being born and then dying in childhood to cause a human mother misery. She has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family but lives in fear of the consequences of her decision.

A story about Canada's Black history and a journey of personal discovery.
A chance encounter with a panhandler named Patricia leads Cyril to a suitcase full of photographs and letters dating back to the early 1920s. Cyril is drawn into the letters and their story of a white mother's struggle to come to terms with the need to give up her mixed-race baby, Edward. Abandoned by his white father as a small child, Cyril feels a compelling connection to the boy and begins to look for the rest of Edward's story. As he searches, Cyril unearths hidden pieces of Black history and gradually gains the confidence to trust his own judgment.

The only mention of Jude in Nova Scotia's official history relates to her death: a slave-owning family was brought to trial for her murder in 1801. They were acquitted despite overwhelming evidence they were guilty. Through Robart-Johnson's research, we experience nineteenth-century Nova Scotia, when political debates about abolishing slavery were just beginning to emerge. Through Robart-Johnson's creativity, we enter the historical fiction of Jude and Diana and their strong familial bonds, each character developed with nuance and care. While chronicling the cruelty they endured, Robart-Johnson's storytelling powerfully honours their humour, strength, and shining dignity.

Delving behind Canada's veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, Policing Black Lives traces the violent realities of anti-blackness from the slave ships to prisons, classrooms and beyond. A call-to-action, Policing Black Lives urges readers to work toward dismantling structures of racial domination and re-imagining a more just society.