The Black Speculative Tradition

Abstract: Far too often the speculative novel is erroneously understood as a primarily white and Western literary tradition; however, the truth is far more complex and interesting. While this intervention is well known in certain academic circles, thanks to literary historians like Isiah Lavender and Lisa Yaszek, those who do not study speculative fiction are often ignorant of the genre's actual history. This essay debunks this common inaccuracy in key ways. Foregrounding the work of authors from Martin Delany and Pauline Hopkins to Octavia E. Butler and Rivers Solomon, among others, this essay highlights that there has been a long history of Black speculative novels in the United States going back to the nineteenth century and that the contemporary Black speculative novel is built upon this robust literary tradition.