25 Dates of Importance, 1996 – 2012

[By Howard Rambsy]

1996 – The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty is published. 

1996 – Oprah Winfrey starts “Oprah’s Book Club,” featuring book for her viewers to read and discuss. 

1996 – Oprah’s Book Club features Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977) in October.

1997 – Oprah’s Book Club features Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying (1993) in September. 

1997 – Paradise by Toni Morrison is published. 

1998  - Oprah’s Book Club features Toni Morrison’s Paradise (1997) in January. 

1998 – Kevin Rodney directs How Stella Got Her Groove Back based on Terry McMillan. Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs, and Whoopi Goldberg star in the film. 

1998 – Oprah’s Book Club features Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) in May.  

1999 – The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead is published. 

2000 – Oprah’s Book Club features Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) in April. 

2000 - The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah is published. 

2001 – John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead is published. 

2002 – Colson Whitehead receives a MacArthur Fellowship.

2002 – Oprah’s Book Club features Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973)  in April. 

2002 - Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones is published.

2003 - Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks is published.

2003 – Love by Toni Morrison is published.

2003 - The Known World by Edward P. Jones is published.

2004 – Edward Jones is awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in for The Known World (2003).

2007 - Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead is published.

2008 - A Father's Law by Richard Wright is posthumously published.        

2008 - A Mercy by Toni Morrison is published.

                 

2009 - Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead is published.

       

2011 – Zone One by Colson Whitehead is published. 

2011 – Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward is published. 

[Related: Timeline Series—African American Novel History]