Emerald Faith is getting ready for US Black History Month in February, and also LGBTQIA History Month on this side of the Atlantic. Faith looks back at ten queer people of colour classics of literature from the last century. Faith explains "Home is rarely, if ever, just the place we grew up. Especially for those of us whose identities exist outside the white, cishetero mainstream, questions of comfort and safety are more often about who we commune with than where we are. Black queer folks know this truth better than most. We’ve lived it — seeking and finding radical forms of belonging in the underground bars and social clubs of the early 20th Century and the bookhouses and carespaces of today."

For many, literature provides more than just a story; it offers a vital sense of belonging and understanding. This transformative power is profoundly felt within Black queer narratives, where readers often find their own experiences reflected and validated for the first time.

The journey of self-discovery through such works is powerfully illustrated by one reader's experience with James Baldwin’s seminal 1953 novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Growing up as a Black lesbian in a deeply religious Southern family, where her father, grandmother, and three aunts were all reverends, she was intimately familiar with the loneliness and conflict endured by Baldwin’s 14-year-old protagonist. Having come out to friends in the eighth grade, she felt compelled to live a closeted life around her relatives to preserve those family bonds.

In Baldwin’s pages, she encountered a mirror to her own reality: the shame of desire, the constant fear of exposure, the secret joys, and the arduous struggle to reconcile her queer identity with her faith. While the subject matter was challenging, the profound comfort came from the realisation that she was not alone in her pain or her capacity for joy.

This sense of affirmation and possibility was further crystallised by the work of Audre Lorde. Reading Lorde’s account in Zami of making love to a woman, described as "like coming home to a joy I was meant for," powerfully echoed her own feelings. These words did more than resonate; they actively shifted her worldview. They served as a crucial reminder that she, too, deserved love, pleasure, and intimacy, challenging her never to settle for less and reinforcing the belief that her Black queer life was inherently worth living.

For those seeking to explore this vital literary landscape, a curated reading list has been compiled by Emerald and is available to view on the online culture magazine Them.