Black Jesus and Other Superheroes Book Cover

Black Jesus and Other Superheroes


A Science Fiction Short Story Collection


Subgenres & Tropes:

  • Short Stories,
  • Superhero Fiction,
  • Literary Science Fiction
Buy from Amazon

This book is for you if you're into...

  • Ordinary people with strange, burdensome superpowers
  • Stories that dissect race, sexuality, and love through surreal twists
  • Darkly funny writing that probes the human spirit
Publisher Description

2018 PEN America Literary Award Winner–Los Angeles

Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, Black Jesus and Other Superheroes chronicles ordinary people achieving vivid extrasensory perception while under extreme pain.

The stories tumble into a universe of the jaded and the hopeful, in which men and women burdened with unwieldy and undesirable superhuman abilities are nonetheless resilient in subtle and startling ways.

Venita Blackburn's characters hurl themselves toward the inevitable fates they might rather wish away.

Their stories play with magic without the sparkle, glaring at the internal machinations of the human spirit.

Fragile symbols for things such as race, sexuality, and love are lifted, decorated, and exposed to scrutiny and awe like so many ruins of our imagination.

Through it all Blackburn's characters stumble along currents of language both thoughtful and hilarious.

More Venita Blackburn

Follow This Author

Sign up & we'll email you when a new title is available for pre-order or hits the bookshelf

Little Stacks of Science Fiction

Get Free & Discounted eBooks

Curated reads, irresistible prices—subscribe now

Add this book to your To Be Read list

Sign up to build your personal library

Archive This Book

Sign up to build your personal library