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Afro-Latino writers have long shaped literature with their unique narratives, blending themes of identity, history, and resilience. Whether you’re a seasoned reader or discovering these voices for the first time, this list introduces eleven incredible authors whose works deserve a place on your shelf.
Dive into their stories and enrich your literary world.
1. Elizabeth Acevedo
Elizabeth Acevedo is a National Book Award-winning author and former Young People’s Poet Laureate. Known for The Poet X, With the Fire on High, and Clap When You Land, her work blends poetry and storytelling. A National Poetry Slam Champion, she holds an MFA in creative writing and lives in Washington, DC.]
2. Veronica Chambers
Veronica Chambers is a prolific author best known for Mama’s Girl, a critically acclaimed memoir. A writer from Panama and Brooklyn, she has coauthored multiple New York Times bestsellers, including Yes Chef and 32 Yolks. A former senior editor at the New York Times Magazine, she is a JSK Knight Fellow at Stanford.
3. Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa is an award-winning Puerto Rican author known for Daughters of the Stone and A Woman of Endurance. Raised in the South Bronx, her work explores Afro-Caribbean heritage and storytelling. A former educator and librarian, she continues writing, teaching, and speaking, and currently resides in the Bronx.
4. Tony Medina
Tony Medina is an award-winning poet, author, and professor of creative writing at Howard University. He has written and edited seventeen books, including I and I, Bob Marley, and Broke Baroque. A Langston Hughes Society Award recipient, his work appears in over one hundred publications and multiple anthologies.
5. Naima Coster
Naima Coster is a New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours and Halsey Street. A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, her work has appeared in the New York Times, Elle, and Time. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and teaches writing in various settings.
6. Alan Pelaez Lopez
Alan Pelaez Lopez is a scholar, writer, and visual artist exploring Black undocumented experiences and Afro-Mexican visual culture. Their work spans poetry, criticism, and art, engaging erased histories and alternative futures. They authored Intergalactic Travels and edited When Language Broke Open, with writing in The Nation and Teen Vogue.
7. Sofía Quintero
Sofía Quintero is an author and activist whose novels span genres, including Efrain’s Secret and Divas Don’t Yield. A Bronx-born Puerto Rican-Dominican, she cofounded Chica Luna Productions to support women of color in media. A Columbia graduate, she blends arts and activism in socially conscious storytelling.
8. Aya de León
Aya de León is an award-winning author, activist, and UC Berkeley professor, directing the Poetry for the People program. She writes feminist heist and climate justice novels, including the Justice Hustlers series. She is the acquiring editor for Fighting Chance Books and organizes with the Black Hive for climate justice.
9. Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author known for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Drown, and This Is How You Lose Her. A MacArthur Genius Fellow, he is the fiction editor at Boston Review and a professor at MIT. He cofounded the Voices of Our Nation Workshop.
10. Willie Perdomo
Willie Perdomo is an award-winning poet and author of Smoking Lovely: The Remix and The Crazy Bunch. A PEN Open Book Award winner, his work appears in The New York Times Magazine and The Best American Poetry 2019. He teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy and co-edited the anthology Latínext.
11. Ivelisse Rodriguez
Ivelisse Rodriguez is the author of Love War Stories, a PEN/Faulkner finalist and Foreword Reviews INDIES finalist. A 2022 Letras Boricuas fellow, she holds an MFA and PhD in creative writing and is a distinguished professor at DePauw University. Her work has been recognized in O Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and more.
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This article was written with the assistance of AI.
