This document provides an overview of African American writers and their works. It discusses the themes often found in African American writing like double consciousness and attacks on white cultural superiority. It summarizes important time periods and movements like the Harlem Renaissance. It also profiles several influential African American authors such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright, highlighting some of their major works.

1. African- American Writers
Presented by- Urvi Dave
Class- M A
Semester- 2
Batch Year- 2014-16
Enrolment no.- 14101009
Paper no.- 8c (Cultural Studies)
Email id- dave.urvi71@gmail.com
Guidance- Dr. Dilip Barad
Submitted to- Smt. S B Gardi
Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji 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. 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 form
Harvard.
Has co-authored five books. Publishes
magazine ‘O, The Oprah Magazine’
from 2004-08.

6. Toni Morrison (18 February, 1931) is an American
novelist, editor and professor. Her novels are known for
their epic themes, vivid dialogue and richly detailed
characters.
Best novels- ‘The Bluest Eye’, ‘Sula’, ‘Song of Solomon’,
and ‘Beloved’.
Won Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in
1988 for Beloved and the Nobel Prize.
In 1975, her novel Sula was nominated for the National
Book Award.

7. Third novel, Song of Solomon (1977) brought her
national attention. The book was a main selection
of the Book of the Month Club, the first novel by a
black writer to be so chosen since Richard
Wright’s Native Son in 1940.

8. James Mercer Langston Hughes
(01 February 1902- 22 May 1967),
was an American poet, Social
activist, Novelist, Playwright and
Columnist.
Best known as a leader of the
Harlem Renaissance. He famously
wrote about the period that “The
Negro was in Vogue” which was
later paraphrased as “When Harlem
was in Vogue”.

9.  First published in The Crisis in 1921,
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, which
became Hughes's signature poem,
was collected in his first book of
poetry, The Weary Blues (1926).
 Identified as unashamedly black at a
time when blackness was démodé.
He stressed the theme of “Black is
Beautiful” as he explored the black
human condition in variety of
depths.
 Fist novel- Not Without Laughter
(1930)
 First collection of short stories-
Ways of White Folks (1934).

10.  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.

11.  Countee Cullen (30 May 1903- 09
January 1946) was an African
American poet who was a leading
figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
 Worked as assistant editor for
Opportunity magazine. His column
“The Dark Tower” increased his
literary reputation.
 First novel “One Way to Heaven”
(1932), a social comedy of lower class
blacks and the Bomgeoisie in New
York city.
 Other works- “The Lost Zoo” (1940),
“My Lives and How I Lost Them”
(1942), “St. Louis Woman” (1946).

12. 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.

13. Uncle Tom’s Children (1938) is a
collection of four short stories.
Was appointed to the editorial
board of New Masses and
Granville Hicks, prominent
literary critic and Communist
sympathizer.
Native Son (1940)

14.  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)
Bloodline
The Autobiography of
Ms. Jane Pitman (1971)
A Long Day in November
(1971)
The Turtles (1956)
The Sky is Gray (1963)

15. 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.