Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance de William L. Andrews

Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance

William L. Andrews

The first collection ever assembled of the most distinctive, influential, and widely appreciated novels and short stories of the Harlem Renaissance, this anthology opens a window on one of the most extraordinary assertions of racial self-consciousness in Western literature. With an insightful introduction to provide historical context and a lucid biographical headnote about each of the authors, this volume brings together under one cover the Harlem Renaissance literature most widely taught. Short stories include Sweat (1926) and The Gilded Six-Bits (1933) by Zora Neale Hurston, Rudolph Fisher's Miss Cynthie (1933), and The Blues I'm Playing (1934) by Langston Hughes. The novels Home to Harlem (1928) by Claude McKay and Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1929) are featured in their entirety, along with major selections from Jean Toomer's Cane. Added features include a chapter from Wallace Thurman's Infants of the Spring (1932), a notorious roman a clef about the Harlem Renaissance, and Rudolph Fisher's half tongue-in-cheek Introduction to Contemporary Harlemese, Expurgated and Abridged (1928). For students and teachers alike, there can be no more effective or enjoyable way of exploring the intellectual concerns, the ideological perspectives, and the artistic innovations of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Descriere

During the 20s and 30s, an extraordinary confluence of black talent expressed itself in the literary and cultural phenomenon that has come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. In a radical assertion of racial self-consciousness and a celebration of ethnic identity which was echoed across the nation, black writers and intellectuals came together with the intent of redefining the vision of America through artistic endeavor. The texts and authors which have longbeen recognized as exemplary of the Harlem Renaissance - Toomer, Hurston, Larsen, Hughes - have inspired increasingly widespread historical and literary studies of the era, but until now there has been no definitive volume rendering them accessible to the mainstream American classroom.The anthology, which contains three novellas and four Short stories, offers lucid biographical headnotes about each of the authors included. Bill Andrews' fluid and insightful introduction provides a full historical context for a study of the Harlem Renaissance, inquiring into its motives and its follies, its ambitions and its failures; and he traces its resonances to the present day. Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance offers every prospect of becoming the flagship textbookfor studies of the period.