Deep in his cultural roots Richard Wright sensed a natural creative force. He saw it as a manifestation in his grandmother's religiosity and in the lyrics of the blues and in black folk expressions.

His ...

Shaping Memories offers short essays by notable black women writers on pivotal moments that strongly influenced their careers. With contributions from such figures as novelist Paule Marshall, folklorist ...

A key figure in modern science fiction and fantasy, Samuel R. Delany (b. 1942) is also one of the most acclaimed figures in contemporary literary theory and gay/lesbian literature. As a gay African American ...

Never before published, A Business Career is the story of Stella Merwin, a white woman entering the working-class world to discover the truth behind her upper-class father's financial failure. A “New ...

The critique of white male society that Charles W. Chesnutt launched in A Marrow of Tradition continues in Evelyn's Husband, one of six manuscripts left unpublished when this highly regarded African American ...

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932), critically acclaimed for his novels, short stories, and essays, was one of the most ambitious and influential African American writers of the late nineteenth and early ...

A fascinating blend of hatred and tenderness, of hard-boiled realism and generous idealism colors the writings of Chester Himes. How did this gifted son of the respectable southern black family become ...

This bibliography of Richard Wright's library and reading serves as a key to understanding the development, philosophies, and aesthetics of this great writer and provides accurate information for the ...

After the Second World War, Gertrude Stein asked a friend's support in securing a visa for Richard Wright to visit Paris.

“I've got to help him,” she said. “You see, we are both members of a minority ...

As a chronicler of the African American experience in fiction and as an incisive cultural commentator in her essays and lectures, Toni Morrison (b. 1931) is regarded as one of the nation's most distinguished ...