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African American Writers
Divya ChoudharyMA Sem :- 2 Roll No. :- 07
Course No. 8, Cultural Studies
Enrolment No. :-PG15101007Submitted to :- Department
of English, M. K.Bhavnagar
University
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”.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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)
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 .
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.
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.
