Since reading the Spill Stories community’s Black in Asia in 2021, I have been accumulating a list of books that revolve around the experiences and anecdotes of Black people in Asia or a world influenced by countries in Asia. Black in Asia is a sub-genre of books that explores what it’s like to move or grow up in the East from the perspective of a Black person or someone of Black descent set in Asia.
This list has not only been created as a reading space for anyone interested in these kinds of stories but also to highlight a need for more of these books within the publishing industry. After all it appeals to people who love entertainment, cuisine, travelling and history in Asia.
So far, here is all the books that I have managed to find that are written by authors of Black descent who have lived in the continent and are set in Asia, available on Bookshop.org, Amazon and other retailers to purchase. I have also set up a Goodreads list. If you know any more books that fit this criteria, please comment below:
Articles
Academia
- 21st Century Japan Decoded: the only Manual on Mental Health for Blacks in Japan by Takuan Amaru
- Babylon East by Marvin D Sterling
- Black Dragon: Afro Asian Performance and the Martial Arts Imagination (Black Performance and Cultural Criticism) by Zachary F. Price
- Internationalism in Practice: Claudia Jones, Black Liberation, and the “Bestial” War on Korea by Claudia Jones
- Playing in the Shadows: Fictions of Race and Blackness in Postwar Japanese Literature by William H Bridges
- The East Is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination by Robeson Taj Frazier
- The Blacks of Premodern China by Don J. Wyatt
Children’s
- A Morning Calm Summer by Mary Abura
- Blaze Around the World: Adventures in China by Tierra Creekmur
- Brownies: We live in Japan by Tara Kamiya
- Johnny and Joshua: Coming to Korea by EJ Asare
- Kei The True Friend by Kinota Braithwaite and translated by Mamiko Shimada
- Mio is beautiful (Book 2) by Kinota Braithwaite and translated by Setsuko Miura
- REALLY READY: Life of a Black Kid in Japan by FAITH EKENE ANUMAKA
- Princess Momo by Tara Kamiya
- Kim Imani: The Girl Made of Magic by Makeda Haughton and Bijan Samaddar
Fiction
- Adrienne by D. Renee Bagby
- Black Ghosts by Ken N. Kamoche
- Fifty Words for Rain By Asha Lemmie
- Hollow Men (The Windshine Chronicles – Book 2 • Book 3) by Todd Sullivan
- In Such Tremendous Heat by Kehinde Fadipe
- My Top 50 Strange Experiences In Japan by Osaka Roolz
- OOLONG KIKO: Living in Taiwan A Black Experience by George Edwards Jr
- Shirley in Vietnam by Munjah Shirley
- Tokyo Firewall by Elizabeth Wilkerson
- Tokyo Night Parade by J.P Takahashi
- Umoja: ToPoJo Excursions: Black Diaspora Edition by Biankah Bailey and Marcellus Nealy
Non-Fiction
- A Black Traveler’s Guide to Japanese Beauty by Christina Bellevue
- Black in Asia by Spill Stories
- Black in China by Aaron A Vessup
- Black Girl from Pyongyang by Monica Macias
- Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China by Noo Saro-Wiwa
- Black Passenger, Yellow Cabs by Stefhen Bryan
- Being Black in Vietnam by Donald Talbert
- Bearing My Seoul by Taryn Blake
- Bed-Stuy to Beijing by Dr Cherell Dossett
- Being Black in Asia by Miguel S. Flemming
- Black American Entrepreneur in China: Connecting Industry and Cultural Differences by William D Frazier
- Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans by Wallace Terry
- Dating Asian Men: A Black American Woman´s Memoir by Jo Kelly
- From Harlem to Viet Nam and Back: Simply a Black Marine’s Combat Experience in Southeast Asia by Enoch Buckery
- Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist (Book 2) by Baye McNeil
- Internationalism in Practice: Claudia Jones, Black Liberation, and the “Bestial” War on Korea by Claudia Jones
- Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun by Faith Adiele
- OOLONG KIKO: Living in Taiwan A Black Experience by George Edwards Jr
- Re-Membering and Surviving: African American Fiction of the Vietnam War by Shirley A. James Hanshaw
- SoKoDiaries: An American Teacher Living In South Korea (Book 2 • Book 3) by Nailah Harvey
- Taiwan: An Underrated Paradise by Brittany Edwards
- Teacher Black: My Year In China by James Prescott-Kerr
- The Black Traveler’s Guide To Incheon, South Korea (Book 2) by The Blerd Explorer
- The Eternal Outsider: 10 Years Black In Japan by Trevor David Houchen
- The Korean: Single and Obese: Then Kimchi Changed Everything! by Africa Yoon
- The Unexpected Perspective by Carl Hill Jr
- Trailblasian by T.K. McLennon