Novels
- Long Distance Life
- A Woman’s Place
- And Do Remember Me
- The Edge of Heaven
- After
Nonfiction
- Migrations of the Heart
- Don’t Play in the Sun One Woman’s Journey Through The Color Complex
-“
Ah just couldn’t see mahself married to no black man. It’s too many black folks already. We ought to lighten up the race” this quote from There Eyes Were Watching God opens Marita Golden’s book Don’t Play in the Sun, a memoir about her identification with the color complex. In this quote Mrs. Turner, a character in the novel, speaks the essence of the color complex, the more skin pigmentation African Americans have the more insignificant they are as a person . Golden uses the quote from There Eyes Were Watching God because it is similar to her mother telling her “I’ve told you don’t play in the sun. You’re going to have to get a light-skinned husband for the sake of your children as it is” These two quotes are two similar concepts that come from the colorist ideology of African Americans. Colorism, color-conscious, color struck, color complex are all words describing this ideology. Golden uses color complex because the belief system is an exaggerated reaction to matters of the skin in which an entire culture of persons are preoccupy themselves with. Marita Golden explores how the color complex affected her personally and how it affects the African American culture as a whole.
- A Miracle Everyday: Triumph and Transformation in the Lives of Single Mothers
- Saving Our Sons Raising Black Children in a Turbulent World
Anthologies
- Skin Deep: Black and White Women on Race
- Gumbo A Celebration of African American Writing
- It’s All Love Black Writers on Soul Mates Family and Friends