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.