"When was the first time you felt represented in the literature you consumed?" Tracy Clayton and Heben Nigatu of the podcast Another Round asked, on the episode "Lit is Lit." The question was meant for their guests, but it lingered in my headphones long after they asked it. When was the first time I truly recognized myself within the pages of a book?

It was only two years ago, when I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, a novel loaded with so many meditations on race, relationships, womanhood, and blackness that it cannot be summarized, only felt. But it took most of my life to find that book.

At school, my English teachers assigned books by white men and white women. This was surprising, considering that I went to public school in Brooklyn, where my classmates were mostly black, Latinx, and Asian. Our teachers, who were usually white, failed to diversify our reading list.

I didn't truly start reading books by people of color until college, where I met Pablo Neruda, Haruki Murakami, and Chinua Achebe, and black philosophers like Audre Lorde and James Baldwin, who had opinions on our problematic society. It was then that I began to think critically about the world around me and my role in it.

I wonder what would have happened if I had been exposed to books by black women as a child. As a child, when I told people I wanted to be a writer, the typical response was discouragement. Writers don't make a lot of money, and most aren't lucky enough to publish books, they'd tell me. Their doubt over my career choice was compounded by my race and gender: "How many black women writers do you know?" they'd ask.

They were right. I wasn't familiar with many, apart from the marvelous Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker.

I didn't know that black girls like me could exist in the stories I wanted to read.

I hadn't searched for my nerdy, quirky self in the books I consumed because I didn't know that black girls like me could exist in the stories I wanted to read. I'd automatically expected that I wouldn't fit in. I liked reading about magical, mythical feminine beings, adolescent girls with superpowers, and shapeshifting monsters—but none of these tales starred girls with dark skin and textured hair.

People of marginalized identities learn from a very young age how to insert themselves into stories about white, able, heteronormative characters, as if these narratives are shoes that can fit any foot. We adapt to the lens of a white gaze, even when our experiences don't align with what we read. There is, no doubt, a universality to much literature, allowing us to see ourselves within different narratives. But other times, these narratives make us feel left out.

A little voice told me that I didn't always have to fit my identity to the perspectives of these characters. And when I began reading books by diverse writers, this voice grew louder and louder. It said that there were more stories to be told, and several ways to tell them.

So I embarked on a literary journey. The mission: read more books by women, LGBTQ authors, and writers of color. I cascaded through Han Kang's The Vegetarian, a haunting fairy tale about food, women's bodies, and power; enjoyed Miranda July's strange and wonderful The First Bad Man; and laughed my way through A. Igoni Barrett's Blackass, about a Nigerian man who wakes up one day and discovers he is white.

Then I read Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, a novel that took me from slavery in Ghana to systemic racism in present-day America, through the stories of dozens of Ghanaian, black American, and biracial characters. I'd never read a novel that so captured my conflicting thoughts and emotions as a Ghanaian-American woman. But what I loved most was Gyasi's writing: the way every chapter was a spellbinding, intimate experience. Within the pages of Homegoing, I found a place for my soul to dwell; I saw my identity reflected, and was proud that someone who came from a similar background had created a way for me to do that.

I needed more. I wanted to continue seeing, smelling, feeling, tasting, and hearing myself in literature. Soon, my reading project turned specifically into an expedition of black women writers.

I soared through Cynthia Bond's Ruby, a powerful tale of love, strength, and spirituality in Texas in the 1950s and '60s. Ruby, a once captivating woman, becomes a distorted version of herself after years of abuse. But the humble Ephram is determined to help deliver her from the darkness. Bond balances horror and tragedy with hope, love, and transformation, crafting a tale in which sexism and racism are ghostly, insidious villains.

Here Comes the Sun tore me apart. Nicole Dennis-Benn's novel centers on a family of Jamaican women who have secrets and desires unknown to each other. Thandi dreams of being an artist and having light skin, while her sister Margot is in love with another woman. Their mother, complicated and unloving, is a heartbreaking force in their lives. Although the title suggests an airy, bright story, the novel is dark, exposing the colorism, misogyny, and homophobia black women experience.

I fell in love with Brit Bennett's The Mothers. Part coming-of-age tale; part examination of friendship, black spirituality, and motherhood, this debut novel is one of the most memorable books I have ever read. Bennett's prose is effortless and honest; she uncovers deep secrets within her sentences.

With Jacqueline Woodson's Another Brooklyn, I traveled back to the Brooklyn I grew up in: a place where block parties punctuate the summer, men sneer while you walk past, and wonder and peril exist alongside one another. Along with her teenaged black protagonists, I reveled in the danger and delight of their beauty.

Finally, I witnessed the ways short stories can illustrate the many facets of blackness, in ZZ Packer's candid and unsettling Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. In this special collection, I met a young woman facing the complexities of traveling abroad, a man who tries to sell exotic birds at the Million Man March, and an underappreciated churchgoer who finds her voice in an unlikely place.

As I read these books, and many others, I found myself in an intimate, extensive conversation with black women I had never met. Through them I was reminded that we can turn our stories into meaningful, monumental works of art. After months of reading and feeling their truths, I felt more confident in my own skin, more justified and empowered as a black female writer.

Maybe other little black girls now are finding this sooner than I did. Maybe there's a little black girl lost in a book right now, recognizing herself and all her potential. There are certainly many stories by black women left for me to explore, now that I've found a secret sisterhood of words, a therapeutic circle that meets within the crisp pages of a book. Having begun this journey, that endless corridor of mirrors is where I'll continue to go.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io