Canceled events, publishing delays, shuttered bookstores—in many ways, 2020 was an awful year for Chicago writers. But it was a fantastic year for Chicago readers, at least when it comes to new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. To keep this list manageable, I’ve limited it to books with a strong emphasis on the city itself. That means you won’t see books set elsewhere, like Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive and Kathleen Rooney’s Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, nor books with broader subject matter, like Mikki Kendall’s Hood Feminism. Nonetheless, here are my favorite Chicago-focused books of 2020, available at an independent bookstore near you.
Mustafah’s debut novel opens with a school shooting at a Muslim school for girls just south of Chicago. As gunshots shake the ceiling of her office, the Palestinian-American school principal, Afaf Rahman, remembers her life growing up in the city, including the disappearance of her sister and the unraveling of her family. A harrowing work of insightful fiction, it absolutely earned its spot in this year’s New York Times‘s 100 Notable Books.
A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Arshay Cooper (Flatiron Books)
Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City by William Sites (University of Chicago Press)
