Good books written in AAVE?
June 25, 2021 12:44 AM Subscribe
As an ESL speaker, I'm not very familiar with African American Vernacular English beyond what little I've seen in movies, and I'd like to broaden my familiarity with it to the point of at least being able to recognise the basic structures of it. Recommend me American Black books written at least partly in AAVE, especially in narration? Genre fiction preferred, because gods know I don't often have the focus for very literary stuff and memoirs just don't click with me.
There's a good amount of this in Beatty's (Man Booker-prize winning) The Sellout.
posted by kickingtheground at 10:55 AM on June 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by kickingtheground at 10:55 AM on June 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
The above mentioned The Hate U Give as well as the prequel Concrete Rose, both by Angie Thomas, are great and fit the bill. Push by Sapphire as well.
posted by rachaelfaith at 11:55 AM on June 25, 2021
posted by rachaelfaith at 11:55 AM on June 25, 2021
Although he is Jamaican and most of the book takes place in Jamaica, the american portions of Marlon James' "A Brief History of Seven Killings" are interesting in this respect. But also Jamaican patois has had a lot of influence on AAVE in general, given shared roots.
posted by dis_integration at 1:13 PM on June 25, 2021
posted by dis_integration at 1:13 PM on June 25, 2021
The voice of one of the main characters in the book I'm Not Dying With You Tonight did a great job of this.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 2:09 PM on June 25, 2021
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 2:09 PM on June 25, 2021
You might want to check out the work of Chester Himes. Himes is noted for his hardboiled Harlem detective novels featuring NYPD detectives Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones. Several of them have been turned into movies. His books were published in the mid 1940s through the late 1960s so some of the slang is dated and there is frequent use of the N-word. However, I wouldn't characterize the language as gratuitous.
posted by brookeb at 3:54 PM on June 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by brookeb at 3:54 PM on June 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I just finished reading Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley, which is basically hardboiled detective fiction from the point of view of a black man in postwar Los Angeles. The narrator takes care with his speech around white people but lots of the dialogue is AAVE-accented. There are a few of these and they're pretty well reviewed (I've only read the first but liked it). On preview, it sounds like I should check out Chester Himes too!
This might not be quite what you're looking for but Barracoon by Zora Neal Hurston has an archaic early AAVE that might be of interest, since it is extremely of its time. Apparently it is extremely authentic. But it's more memoir style for sure.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:58 PM on June 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
This might not be quite what you're looking for but Barracoon by Zora Neal Hurston has an archaic early AAVE that might be of interest, since it is extremely of its time. Apparently it is extremely authentic. But it's more memoir style for sure.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:58 PM on June 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Since Chester Hines and Walter Mosely have been mentioned, I will add Really the Blues, the 1946 memoir by Mezz Mezzrow, about his life as a jazz musician from the 1910s throught the early 1940s. The whole book is written in 1940s jazz hipster talk --- there is an Appendix with one chapter translated to Standqrd English.
Mezzrow was white but spent those years mostly working and living with black people. The book is as-told-to another white author, Bernard Wolfe, who is interesting in his own right --- he was Leon Trotsky's secretary in Mexico and wrote the early science fiction novel Limbo. So I don't know how authentic the language is --- or how closely 1940s jazz hipster talk resembles modern AAVE. But it's a good story and an interesting historical curiousity at least.
posted by JonJacky at 10:32 PM on June 25, 2021
Mezzrow was white but spent those years mostly working and living with black people. The book is as-told-to another white author, Bernard Wolfe, who is interesting in his own right --- he was Leon Trotsky's secretary in Mexico and wrote the early science fiction novel Limbo. So I don't know how authentic the language is --- or how closely 1940s jazz hipster talk resembles modern AAVE. But it's a good story and an interesting historical curiousity at least.
posted by JonJacky at 10:32 PM on June 25, 2021
> But also Jamaican patois has had a lot of influence on AAVE in general, given shared roots.
Jamaican patios and AAVE are very different.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:09 AM on June 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Jamaican patios and AAVE are very different.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:09 AM on June 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
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posted by jabes at 8:09 AM on June 25, 2021 [1 favorite]