This document provides biographical information about several important African American writers and their works. It discusses the Harlem Renaissance period in the early 20th century and how African American writing explored themes of double consciousness, folklore, language, and challenging white cultural norms. Major figures mentioned include Zora Neale Hurston, Margaret Walker, Richard Wright, Ernest Gaines, Oprah Winfrey, Langston Hughes, August Wilson, and James Baldwin.

1. Name- Budhiditya Shankar Das
Course- M.A. (English)
Paper No.- 07
Roll No.- 07
Email Id- budhiditya900@gmail.com
Submitted to- Smt.S.B.Gardi
Department of English
M.K.Bhavnagar
University

2. ->African- American writing often displays a folkloric
conception of human kind; a “double consciousness”, as W E
B Dubois called it, arising from bicultural identity, irony,
parody, tragedy, and bitter comedy in negotiating this
ambivalence; attacks upon presumed white cultural
superiority; a naturalistic focus on survival; and inventing
reframing of language itself, as in language games like
“Jiving”, “Sounding”, “Signifying”, “Playing the Dozens” and
“Rapping”.
->Ellison urged black writers to trust their own experiences
and definitions of reality. He also upheld folklore as a source
of creativity; it was what “ Black people had before they
knew, there was such a thing as art”.

3. -> Bell correctly stresses, no other ethnic or social group in
America has shared anything like the experience of American
Blacks: Kidnapping, the Middle Passage, Slavery, Southern
plantation life, emancipation, Reconstruction and post-
reconstruction, Northern migration, urbanisation and ongoing
racism.
->Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937) signalled a tremendous
upsurge in black culture, with an especial interest in
primitives art.
->African American writing continued to enter the main
stream with the protest novels of the 1940s.

4. The 1960s brought Black Power and the Black Arts
Movement, proposing a separate identification and
symbology.
Major Figures
related to Arts
•Amiri Baraka
•Margaret
Walker
•Ernest Gaines
•John Edgar
Wideman
•Ishmael Reed
Major Figures related to
Music
•Chuck Berry
•B B King
•Aretha Franklin
•Stevie Wonder
•Jimmy Hendroic

5. ->Zora Neale Hurston (07 January 1891) is an
anthropologist and novelist and was an fixture
of the Harlem Renaissance before writing her
masterwork “Their Eyes Were Watching God”.
->Published a collection of stories entitled
Mules and Men in 1935. Also contributed
articles to magazines, including the Journal of
American Folklore.
->First novel- Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934).
->In 1942, Hurston published her
autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road.

7. -> Margaret Walker (07 July
1915- 30 November 1998) was
an American poet and writer.
-> She was part of the African-
American literary Movement
in Chicago.
-> Notable works include the
award winning poem For my
People (1942) and the novel
Jubilee (1966), set in the south
during the American Civil War.

9. -> Richard Nathaniel Wright (04
September 1908- 28 November
1960) was an American author
of sometimes controversial
novels, short stories, poems and
non- fiction.
->His literature concerns racial
themes, especially those
including the plight of African
Americans during the late
nineteenth to mid twentieth
centuries.
-> He wrote many short stories.

11. -> Oprah Gail Winfrey (29 January
1954) is an American media
proprietor, talk show host, actress,
producer and philanthropist.
-> Most influential women in the
world. In 2013, she has been
awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom by President Barrack
Obama and an honorary Doctorate
degree from Harvard.
-> She has co-authored five books.
Publishes magazine ‘O, The Oprah
Magazine’ from 2004-08.

13. -> Ernest James Gaines (15 January
1933) is an African American
author.
-> A Lesson Before Dying (1933), a
novel won the National Book
Critics Circle Award for fiction.
-> Works-
• Catherine Cornier (1964)
• Of Love and Dust (1967)
• The Autobiography of Ms. Jane
Pitman (1971)
• A Long Day in November (1971)
• The Turtles (1956)
• The Sky is Gray (1963)

15. -> Langston Hughes was
an American poet, novelist
and playwright. He is best
known for his work during
the 1920s Harlem
Renaissance.
-> With famous poems
such as “The Negro Speaks
of Rivers,” “Let America
Be America Again,”
Hughes proudly depicted
the lives of poor blacks .

17. -> August Wilson is an
American playwright
and best known
for The Pittsburgh Cycle
(often referred to as his
“Century Cycle”), which
consists of ten plays set
in different decades
highlighting the black
experience throughout
the 20th century.

19. -> James Baldwin was a
novelist, poet and
essayist. He explored the
unspoken intricacies of
racial, sexual and class
distinctions in Western
societies throughout 20th
century America.
His novel, Go Tell It On
the Mountain, ranked
39th on the MLA list.