The Most Anticipated Books of 2025, BIPOC Edition

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Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside of work, much of her free time is spent looking for her next great read and planning her next snack.

Find her on Twitter at @Erica_Eze_.

View All posts by Erica Ezeifedi

The year has only just started, and my 2025-specific TBR cup already runneth over. I mean, January alone has so many releases by highly acclaimed and buzzy debut authors, but then there’s February, and March, and so on. I say all that to say that, while yes, this list looks at some of the most anticipated books by BIPOC authors coming out in 2025, I’m going to keep it real and say that I didn’t (couldn’t) make it much past the first half of the year. There are just so many great releases coming out, so I only have one book listed here that is scheduled for release after June.

But that’s a good thing! We are eating all year long, friends—especially if you are looking to follow our 2025 Read Harder Challenge, starting with Task 1: Read a 2025 release by a BIPOC author.

Again, the list I’ve compiled of 2025 BIPOC releases has some titles left out—there just wasn’t enough time in the day—but what I do have are among the buzziest books (fiction and nonfiction) coming out this year by BIPOC authors, award-winning and debut alike. In them, women brave icy horrors in Korea, young lovebirds seek home in 1940s Shanghai and beyond, we see what the color blue means to Black Americans, and much more.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang (Jan. 21)

I have to say that Kang’s timing with this release—after having just won the Nobel Prize in Literature—is A++. We Do Not Part is like The Vegetarian in that it’s also surrealist horror steeped in social issues and history. In it, Kyungha gets a call from her friend who’s been injured and is in a hospital in Seoul. She wants Kyungha to go to her home on Jeju Island to save her pet bird, Ama, but a snowstorm greets Kyungha once she gets to the island. The terrible wind slows Kyungha from getting to her friend’s house, and the cold becomes all-encompassing. What’s more, there is an abject darkness that awaits Kyungha once she gets to the house and then reality starts to blur.

cover of Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry

Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry (Jan. 28)

Perry has followed up the 2022 National Book Award-winning South to America with a look at the color blue and its relationship with Black folks. She looks at the blue cloths of West Africa that were traded for human beings in the 16th century, the Blues, as a genre and general feeling, and even at the more personal—the blue flowers she planted while grieving.

Now, we do have bills (see: people) to pay, being one of the few independent literary-focused media outlets and all, so the first two books above are visible to everyone, while the rest below are visible to people subscribed to our All Access Content.

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