Fiction (by date of publication)
- A Visitation of Spirits. New York: Grove Press, 1989.
- Let the Dead Bury Their Dead and Other Stories. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1992.
- If I Had Two Wings: Stories. W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.
Nonfiction (by date of publication)
- James Baldwin. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1994; new ed. 2005.
- A Time Not Here: The Mississippi Delta. (Photography: Norman Mauskopf; Text: Randall Kenan) Sante Fe, N. Mex.: Twins Palms Pub., 1996.
- Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
- The Fire This Time. Hoboken, N.J.: Melville House Pub., 2007.
- The Cross of Redemption: The Uncollected Writing of James Baldwin. Editor and Introduction. New York: Pantheon, 2010.
- The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food. Editor and Introduction. Hillsborough, N.C.: Eno Publishers, 2016.
- Black Folk Could Fly: Selected Writings by Randall Kenan. W. W. Norton & Company, 2022.