• Daunt Books have recently released English language editions of two of Scholastique Mukasonga’s classic works. Born in Rwanda, Mukasonga has direct experience of the ethnic conflict that has scarred her homeland. In 1960, her Tutsi family was exiled to a region on the Burundi border.

In The Barefoot Woman (2022), translated from the French by Jordan Stump, she recounts her childhood and courage of her mother, Stefania, and the Rwandan women who “fed, protected, counselled and consoled” them all. She lovingly details the rituals that nurtured her family from the arranging of marriages, the imbibing of sorghum beer to the luxurious reward of bread and the women’s love of pipe-smoking.

Her novel Our Lady of the Nile (2021), translated from the French by Melanie Mauthner, is set in a prestigious lycée and describes the troubling rites of passage for Veronica and Virginia. They are both Tutsis in a predominantly Hutu school. It is 15 years before the 1994 Rwandan genocide but already there are intimations of the racial tensions and violence that are to follow.

• Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel Glory (Chatto & Windus), shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, depicts an uprising told by a bold, vivid chorus of animal voices. After a bloody war of liberation from colonisers, a charismatic horse rules for 40 years with the help of his Chosen Ones. Until a new leader arrives and a new regime. Inspired by George Orwell’s Animal Farm, it’s a story of tyranny and revolution.

• Nigerian-British Yomi Sode’s poetry collection, Manorism (Penguin 2022), examines the lives of Black British men and boys: propped up and hemmed in by contemporary masculinity, deepened by family, misrepresented in the media, and complicated by the riches, and the costs, of belonging and inheritance.

• Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel When We Were Birds (Hamish Hamilton, 2022), is a story of love and ghosts, set in Trinidad. Darwin is a gravedigger, newly arrived in Port Angeles to seek his fortune. In an old house on a hill, close to the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. She leaves Yejide a powerful legacy: the power to talk to the dead. Darwin and Yejide’s destinies are intertwined, and they find one another in the sprawling, ancient cemetery at the heart of the island.

• For young readers and music lovers, Jeffrey Boakye’s Musical Truth: A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs (Faber, 2021) features music that has changed the world. Boakye explores the impact of 28 songs and the artists who performed them and tracks some of the key shifts in modern British history.

• Actor Paterson Joseph’s historical novel, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho is published with great fanfare this month by Dialogue Books. Set in Georgian London, Joseph explores the life of the first Black man to vote in Britain. His fictionalised account of a real person, Charles Ignatius Sancho, is sure to win him new fans.

• In Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black (Hanover Square Press, 2022) Jacob is writing a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not spoken in many years, but there are things Isaac must be told. Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery. Secrets from Jacob’s tumultuous relationship with Isaac’s mother. Jacob must give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited.

• Baroness Floella Benjamin’s autobiography What Are You Doing Here? (Pan Macmillan, 2022) describes her arrival in London as a child, as part of the Windrush generation, and the pain caused by the racism she encountered every day. This was offset by the love of her parents, who nurtured the pride in her heritage. From winning a role in musical Hair to breaking down barriers on Play School, Benjamin has remained true to her beliefs.