February 1, 2002 marks the 100th birthday of Langston Hughes. To commemorate the centennial of his birth, Arnold Rampersad has contributed new Afterwords to both volumes of his highly-praised biography of this most extraordinary and prolific American writer. The second volume in this masterful biography finds Hughes rooting himself in Harlem, receiving stimulation from his rich cultural surroundings. Here he rethought his view of art and radicalism, and cultivated relationships with younger, more militant writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Amiri Bakara. Rampersads Afterword to volume two looks further into his influence and how it expanded beyond the literary as a result of his love of jazz and blues, his opera and musical theater collaborations, and his participation in radio and television. In addition, Rempersad explores the controversial matter of Hughess sexuality and the possibility that, despite a lack of clear evidence, Hughes was homosexual. Exhaustively researched in archival collections throughout the country, especially in the Langston Hughes papers at Yale Universitys Beinecke Library, and featuring fifty illustrations per volume, this anniversary edition will offer a new generation of readers entrance to the life and mind of one of the twentieth centurys greatest artists.

February 1, 2002 marks the 100th birthday of Langston Hughes. To commemorate the centennial of his birth, Arnold Rampersad has contributed new Afterwords to both volumes of his highly-praised biography of this most extraordinary and prolific American writer. The second volume in this masterful biography finds Hughes rooting himself in Harlem, receiving stimulation from his rich cultural surroundings. Here he rethought his view of art and radicalism, and cultivated relationships with younger, more militant writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Amiri Bakara. Rampersad's Afterword to volume two looks further into his influence and how it expanded beyond the literary as a result of his love of jazz and blues, his opera and musical theater collaborations, and his participation in radio and television. In addition, Rempersad explores the controversial matter of Hughes's sexuality and the possibility that, despite a lack of clear evidence, Hughes was homosexual. Exhaustively researched in archival collections throughout the country, especially in the Langston Hughes papers at Yale University's Beinecke Library, and featuring fifty illustrations per volume, this anniversary edition will offer a new generation of readers entrance to the life and mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest artists.

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In Coming to Grips with HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Tom Quirk traces the history of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from its inception in 1876 to its problematic presence in today's American culture. By approaching Twain's novel from several quite different perspectives, Quirk reveals how the author's imagination worked and why this novel has affected so many people for so long and in so many curious ways.

This is the first book to celebrate the life and writing of one of the most charismatic Southern leaders of the middle twentieth century, Don West (1906-1992). West was a poet, a pioneer advocate for civil rights, a preacher, a historian, a labor organizer, a folk-music revivalist, an essayist, and an organic farmer. He is perhaps best known as an educator, primarily as cofounder of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and founder of the Appalachian South Folklife Center in West Virginia. In his old age, West served as an elder statesman for his causes. No Lonesome Road allows Don West to speak for himself. It provides the most comprehensive collection of his poetry ever published, spanning five decades of his literary career. It also includes the first comprehensive and annotated collection of West's nonfiction essays, articles, letters, speeches, and stories, covering his role at the forefront of Southern and Appalachian history, and as a pioneer researcher and writer on the South's little-known legacy of radical activism. Drawing from both primary and secondary sources, including previously unknown documents, correspondence, interviews, FBI files, and newspaper clippings, the introduction by Jeff Biggers stands as the most thorough, insightful biographical sketch of Don West yet published in any form. The afterword by George Brosi is a stirring personal tribute to the contributions of West and also serves as a thoughtful reflection on the interactions between the radicals of the 1930s and the 1960s. The best possible introduction to his extraordinary life and work, this annotated selection of Don West's writings will be inspirational reading for anyone interested in Southern history, poetry, religion, or activism.

A collection of interviews, speeches, and essays by Langston Hughes. Let America Be America Again: Conversations with Langston Hughes is a record of a remarkable man talking. In texts ranging from early interviews in the 1920s, when he was a busboy and scribbling out poems on hotel napkins, to major speeches, such as his keynote address at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966, Hughes's words further amplify the international reputation he established over the course of five decades through more widely-published and well-known poems, stories, novels, and plays. In these interviews, speeches, and conversational essays, the writer referred to by admirers as the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race" and the "Dean of Black Letters" articulated some of his most powerful critiques of fascism, economic and racial oppression, and compromised democracy. It was also through these genres that Hughes spoke of the responsibilities of the Black artist, documented the essential contributions of Black people to literature, music, and theatre, and chronicled the substantial challenges that Black artists face in gaining recognition, fair pay, and professional advancement. And it was through these pieces, too, that Hughes built on his celebrated work in other literary genres to craft an original, tragic-comic persona—a Blues poet in exile, forever yearning for and coming back to a home, a nation, that nevertheless continues to disappoint and harm him. A global traveler, Hughes's words, "Let America be America Again" were, throughout his career, always followed by a caveat: "America never was America to me."

"The "New Negro" consciousness with its roots in the generation born in the last and opening decades of the 19th and 20th centuries replenished and nurtured by migration, resulted in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s then reemerged transformed in the 1930s as the Black Chicago Renaissance. The authors in this volume argue that beginning in the 1930s and lasting into the 1950s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that rivaled the cultural outpouring in Harlem. The Black Chicago Renaissance, however, has not received its full due. This book addresses that neglect. Like Harlem, Chicago had become a major destination for black southern migrants. Unlike Harlem, it was also an urban industrial center that gave a unique working class and internationalist perspective to the cultural work that took place here. The contributors to Black Chicago Renaissance analyze a prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression. Each author discusses forces that distinguished and link the Black Chicago Renaissance to the Harlem Renaissance as well as placing the development of black culture in a national and international context by probing the histories of multiple (sequential and overlapping--Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Memphis) black renaissances. Among the topics discussed in this volume are Chicago writers Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright, The Chicago Defender and Tivoli Theater, African American music and visual arts, as well as the American Negro Exposition of 1940"--

The second volume in this biography finds Langston Hughes rooting himself in Harlem, receiving stimulation from his rich cultural surroundings. Here he rethought his view of art and radicalism and cultivated relationships with younger, more militant writers such as Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison.

Selected stories, poems, and plays trace the development of black American literature since colonial times