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African-American Writers AFRICAN-AMERICAN WRITERS Philip Bader Note on Photos Many of the illustrations and photographs used in this book are old, historical images. The quality of the prints is not always up to current standards, as in some cases the originals are from old or poor-quality negatives or are damaged. The content of the illustrations, however, made their inclusion important despite problems in reproduction. African-American Writers Copyright © 2004 by Philip Bader All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bader, Philip, 1969– African-American writers / Philip Bader. p. cm.—(A to Z of African Americans) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN 0-8160-4860-6 (acid-free paper) 1. American literature—African American authors—Bio-bibliography—Dictionaries. 2. African American authors—Biography—Dictionaries. 3. African Americans in literature—Dictionaries. 4. Authors, American—Biography—Dictionaries. I. Title. II. Series. PS153.N5B214 2004 810.9’96073’003—dc21 2003008699 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Joan M. Toro Cover design by Nora Wertz Printed in the United States of America VB Hermitage 10 987654321 This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS List of Entries iv Acknowledgments vi Introduction vii A to Z Entries 1 Bibliography and Recommended Sources 267 Entries by Literary Genre 271 Entries by Literary Movement/Subject Matter/Style 276 Entries by Year of Birth 279 Index 281 LIST OF ENTRIES Ai Danticat, Edwidge Hamilton, Virginia Andrews, Raymond Delany, Samuel R. Hammon, Jupiter Angelou, Maya Demby, William Hansberry, Lorraine Attaway, William Derricotte, Toi Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins Baldwin, James Dodson, Owen Harper, Michael S. Bambara, Toni Cade Douglass, Frederick Hayden, Robert Baraka, Amiri Dove, Rita Hemphill, Essex Beckham, Barry DuBois, W. E. B. Himes, Chester Bennett, Gwendolyn Dumas, Henry hooks, bell Bibb, Henry Walton Dunbar, Paul Laurence Hopkins, Pauline Elizabeth Bonner, Marita Odette Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Ruth Horton, George Moses Bontemps, Arna Moore Hughes, Langston Bradley, David Ellison, Ralph Hurston, Zora Neale Braithwaite, William Equiano, Olaudah Jacobs, Harriet Ann Brooks, Gwendolyn Evans, Mari Johnson, Charles Brown, Claude Everett, Percival Johnson, Fenton Brown, Sterling Fauset, Jessie Redmon Johnson, Georgia Douglas Brown, William Wells Fisher, Rudolph Johnson, Helene Bullins, Ed Forrest, Leon Johnson, James Weldon Butler, Octavia Forten, Sarah Louise Jones, Gayl Chesnutt, Charles W. Fuller, Charles Jordan, June Childress, Alice Fuller, Hoyt Kaufman, Bob Cleage, Pearl Gaines, Ernest J. Kelley, William Melvin Cliff, Michelle Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Kennedy, Adrienne Clifton, Lucille Gayle, Addison, Jr. Killens, John Oliver Coleman, Wanda Giovanni, Nikki Kincaid, Jamaica Cooper, Anna Julia Griggs, Sutton Knight, Etheridge Cooper, J. California Grimké, Angelina Weld Komunyakaa, Yusef Corrothers, James Grimké, Charlotte Forten Larsen, Nella Cortez, Jayne Guy, Rosa Cuthbert Locke, Alain Cullen, Countee Haley, Alex Lorde, Audre iv List of Entries v Mackey, Nathaniel Poston, Ted Walker, Margaret Madhubuti, Haki R. Prince, Nancy Walrond, Eric Major, Clarence Rampersad, Arnold Waniek, Marilyn Nelson Marshall, Paule Reed, Ishmael Washington, Booker T. Matthews, Victoria Earle Richardson, Willis West, Cornel McElroy, Colleen Rodgers, Carolyn M. West, Dorothy McKay, Claude Sanchez, Sonia Wheatley, Phillis McMillan, Terry Schuyler, George Whitehead, Colson McPherson, James Alan Séjour, Victor Whitfield, James Monroe Miller, May Shange, Ntozake Wideman, John Edgar Morrison, Toni Spencer, Anne Williams, John Alfred Mosley, Walter Taylor, Mildred D. Williams, Sherley Anne Murray, Albert Terry, Lucy Wilson, August Naylor, Gloria Thomas, Joyce Carol Wilson, Harriet E. Neal, Larry Thurman, Wallace Wright, Jay Neely, Barbara Tolson, Melvin B. Wright, Richard Nell, William Cooper Toomer, Jean Yerby, Frank Oliver, Diane Troupe, Quincy Young, Al Parks, Suzan-Lori Walker, Alice Petry, Ann Walker, David ACKNOWLEDGMENTS would like to express my gratitude to several My thanks to Charlotte Sumrow Pirch for sup- Iindividuals whose material and moral support plying crucial research materials. I would also like have sustained me through the many months to acknowledge a host of friends and family, whose that went into the writing of this book. I owe a love and support I cherish profoundly, and whose considerable debt to Dr. R. Kent Rasmussen, a forbearance amid difficult months of work I could scholar of considerable repute, a generous men- never adequately repay. tor, and a good friend. Without Dr. Rasmussen’s Finally, to all at Facts On File, and in partic- consistent encouragement and cogent advice, I ular my editor, Nicole Bowen, I thank you for could not have written this book. your patience and professionalism and for the To Michelle Murphy and Andrea Miller, I opportunity to take part in a work that has owe my thanks for their gracious assistance in proved to be deeply enriching. reading and commenting on the early manuscript. vi INTRODUCTION or more than two centuries, black authors in increasing numbers to the shores of America as Fhave explored traditional genres such as an inexpensive source of labor. poetry, drama, short fiction, novels, and essays. The African-American literary tradition They have produced histories and scientific stud- arose in part from a desire to challenge the ies. They have worked as journalists, editors, assumptions of race and culture that have domi- screenwriters, and educators. Black authors have nated American society from the colonial era to written science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, travel modern times. A principal justification for the books, diaries, and songs. Black writers have enslavement of Africans and the perpetuation of argued their humanity, raged against social injus- the institution of slavery hinged on a belief in the tice, and celebrated the rich cultural traditions of cultural and intellectual inferiority of people of African and African-American life. From their African descent that was evidenced by a lack of roots in the early years of enslavement in America, anything that might be construed as literature or black writers have achieved the highest honors art, at least according to Western, Eurocentric available to any author, regardless of culture, color, concepts. The writings of such authors as Jupiter or creed. On August 25, 1746, Lucy Terry, a young Hammon and Phillis Wheatley soon gave the lie slave woman of 16, wrote a ballad commemorating to such arguments and represented acts of revo- the ambush of a white family by Native Americans lution that sparked more than two centuries of lit- in Massachusetts. On December 7, 1993, Toni erary innovations and a growing national Morrison, a woman from a northeastern Ohio steel awareness of the contributions of black Ameri- town, addressed an audience in Norway upon cans to American culture and art. receiving the Nobel Prize in literature. The earliest writings by African Americans, African-American history began with the written and published during the colonial era, arrival of 20 African indentured servants in the introduced many of the themes and issues that colonial settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, in would preoccupy succeeding generations: the right 1619. Indentured servitude soon gave way to slav- to live in freedom, under the same laws and with ery, and more than a century would pass before the the same opportunities as other Americans. first known African-American author, Lucy Terry, Throughout history, black authors have consis- recorded a skirmish between Native Americans tently explored the political dimensions of litera- and colonial settlers in the poem “Bars Fight.” The ture and its ability to effect social change. development of a national market for slavery dur- African-American writers have also provided an ing the 17th and 18th centuries brought Africans essential framework for shaping cultural identity vii viii African-American Writers and solidarity. Through the various eras and move- the brutal realities of slave life galvanized growing ments of the African-American literary tradition, numbers of white Americans and free African including the early nationalist and antislavery Americans who opposed slavery, while also offer- movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, the ing hope to those still in bondage. Firsthand cultural awakening in Harlem during the 1920s depictions of slave life gave rise to a new genre in and 1930s, the rise of protest and black national- American literature, the slave narrative. No ist literature during the mid-20th century, and the greater example of the power and influence of considerable critical and popular success, particu- these narratives can be found than the Narrative larly by women, in the late 20th and early 21st of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). Douglass’s centuries, black authors
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