The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Penguin Classics)

Originally published in 1912, this novel was one of the first to present a frank picture of being black in America

Masked in the tradition of the literary confession practiced by such writers as St. Augustine and Rousseau, this "autobiography" purports to be a candid account of its narrator's private views and feelings as well as an acknowledgement of the central secret of his life: that though he lives as a white man, he is, by heritage and experience, an African-American. Written by the fi...