African american literature

African American Literature The first writings by blacks in America was autobiographical and became known as the Slave Narrative  Three themes developed in early African American writi

African American Literature

History and Current Trends

African American Literature

 The first writings by blacks in America was

autobiographical and became known as the

Slave Narrative

 Three themes developed in early African

American writings around the issue of slavery: accommodation, protest, and escape

African American Literature

 Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa)

 (c 1745-c 1797)

Eqiano was the first black in America to write an autobiography In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the

African (1789) Equiano gives an account of his

native land (he was an Ibo from Niger) and the horrors of his captivity and enslavement in the West Indies

African American Literature

African American Literature

African American Literature

slave narrative genre to include women’s

experiences

African American Literature

 Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)

The first African-American and the second

woman to publish a book in the colonies, she is one of the best known early black poets; her

work was praised by leaders of the American Revolution, including George Washington She

is one of the first writers to use an epistolary

style (in the form of letters)

African American Literature

 Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

Orator, journalist, abolitionist, statesman,

autobiographer and author of Narrative of the Life

of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written

by Himself (1845), the most influential African

American text of his era His writing and life

created a model of self-hood of such moral and political authority, he was later viewed as a

cultural hero

African American Literature

Post-slavery Era

 W.E.B DuBois (1868-1963)

One of the founders of the NAACP, DuBois

published the highly influential The Souls of Black Folk (1903) which created a black intellectual and artistic consciousness He was an essayist,

novelist, academic and the preeminent African American scholar-intellectual of his time

African American Literature

Post-slavery Era

 Booker T Washington (1856-1915)

autobiographer, essayist, educator

 James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) poet, essayist, editor, educator

 Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) poet

African American Literature

The Harlem Renaissance

 The artistic and socio-cultural awakening of

African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s

 It was centered around the vibrant African

American community in Harlem, New York, but had far-reaching influence in art, music,

literature and social thought

 The interplay of art and race, and the aesthetic criteria for evaluating black writing are some of the intellectual legacies of the Harlem

Renaissance

African American Literature

The Harlem Renaissance

 Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

Poet, playwright, essayist, autobiographer, and children’s book author, Hughes came to

attention in 1922 in the anthology The Book of

American Negro Poetry. His most famous poem,

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was written in his teens

African American Literature

The Harlem Renaissance

 Zora Neal Hurston (1891-1960)

Novelist, anthropologist, folklorist, Hurston left New York to return to hometown in Florida in

1927 She began collecting folktales, work songs, spirituals and sermons to document the black

experience In 1935 she published Mules and

Men, the first volume of black American folklore Her finest novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God

(1937) portrays the life and journey of a strong female character set in the rural South

African American Literature

The Harlem Renaissance

 Alain Locke (1886-1954) essayist, editor

 Claude McKay (1889-1948) poet

 Jean Toomer (1894-1967) poet

 Anne Spencer (1882-1975) poet

African American Literature

Realism, Modernism, Naturalism

 The 1940s -1960s was an era of social change for African Americans Influences included the

Second World War, the Second Great Migration, world-wide social movements such as

communism and Marxism, and early civil rights legislation which opened up schools and jobs for many African Americans

 Urban realism – urban sensibility defines much

of the literature of this era

African American Literature

Realism, Modernism, Naturalism

 Richard Wright (1908-1960) novelist,

autobiographer, political commentator His

influential and critically acclaimed novel Native Son (1940) tells the story of a black man

struggling for acceptance in Chicago It garnered him financial success, international fame and his outspoken writing style influenced a generation

of black writers

African American Literature

Realism, Modernism, Naturalism

 Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) novelist, essayist,

scholar, artist, Ellison’s important novel Invisible Man (1952) is the story of a nameless black man who learns to assert himself The Invisible Man is part of the cannon of 20th Century American

literature, though Ellison’s only major published work

African American Literature

Realism, Modernism, Naturalism

 Margaret Walker (1915-1998) poet, novelist,

educator (“For My People”; Jubilee)

 Gwendolyn Brooks (1917- 2000) poet, novelist, children’s writer Her second book of poetry,

Annie Allen won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950

 James Baldwin (1924-1987) novelist, essayist,

playwright, filmmaker, lecturer The story of his painful childhood is the subject of his first novel,

Go Tell It On the Mountain

 Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) her

award-winning play, A Raison in the Sun is a classic of the American theater

African American Literature The Black Arts Movement

in the 1960s and 1970s sought to change the way

African Americans were defined and treated The Black Arts Movement sought to change how blacks were represented and portrayed in literature and

the arts.

change and the concept that the artist is a part of his

or her community and their work should speak to the needs and aspirations of that community.

African American Literature The Black Arts Movement

was co-written with author Alex Haley.

lecturer Baraka influenced later poets to write from the contemporary African American experience.

educator, her writing reflects her personal growth to her commitment to make a more just world

prolific poet, sometimes referred to as the people’s poet for her down-to-earth style has written much about

female identity and autonomy.

African American Literature

The 1970s to the Present

 African American literature began to enter the mainstream of publishing and be read by black and white audiences

 African American literature began to be defined and analyzed

 Black women began to achieve success as

novelists, poets, writers and artists

African American Literature

The 1970s to the Present

 Toni Morrison (1931- ) editor, novelist,

academic, Morrison wrote richly woven stories often with strong female characters The Bluest

Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981) are some of her great novels Beloved

(1988) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988 She is the first African American women to win the Nobel Prize for Literature ( )

African American Literature

The 1970s to the Present

Pulitzer Prize in 1982 It’s the story of two sisters who through separation and trials continue to

support and strengthen each other

in the pantheon of modern American literature.

African American Literature

The 1970s to the Present

 Alex Haley (1921-1992) journalist and novelist who’s Roots (1976) about his family history

traced back to West Africa became a television event in 1977 and sparked a popular interest and pride in African American history and ancestry

He also co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

African American Literature

The 1970s to the Present

 Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) novelist,

essayist, filmmaker, her short story collections,

Gorilla, My Love (1972) and her novel, The Salt

Eaters (1980) demonstrate her commitment to

African American Literature

The 1970s to the Present

 August Wilson (1945-2006) playwright and poet best known for his cycle of 10 plays about black life in America in the 20th Century He won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for Fences (1987) and

 Rita Dove (1952- ) poet, novelist, educator,

Dove won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987

for Thomas and Beulah (1986) She was Poet

Laureate of the United States from 1992-1994

African American Literature The Contemporary Scene

 African American writers have entered the

mainstream of American readership and publish

in many genres: romance, mystery, science

fiction and literary fiction

 While issues of identity and race are still

prominent, the range of human issues are also topics of contemporary African American

literature

African American Literature The Contemporary Scene

the antebellum South.

contemporary black family life and loves.

African American Literature The Contemporary Scene

 Edwidge Danticat (1969- ) author, educator Her Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) was brought to national attention as an “Oprah book.” Brother, I’m Dying (2007) won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008

 ZZ Packer (1973- ) lecturer, short story writer Her short story collection Drinking Coffee

Elsewhere (2003) received wide acclaim

 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977- ) born writer who’s novel about the Biafran war,

Nigerian-Half a Yellow Sun (2006) has placed her firmly on the American and international literary scene

Here are some great web sites for

further research:

http://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov/

The American Memory Project: Library of

Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Slave Narrative Projects from the

Library of Congress:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections /voices/

North American Slave Narratives from the Documenting the American South Project at the University of North Carolina:

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/texts.html

Digital Library on American Slavery, U North Carolina at Greensboro: http://library.uncg.edu/slavery/index.aspx?

s=3

Ex Slave Narratives (Library of Congress Digitizes Slave

Narratives):

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awafc11/ex-slave.html

Faces and Voices (Library of Congress):

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/vf

ssp.html

Other resources from the Library of Congress:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/vfsresource.html

American Slave Narratives from the University of Virginia’s

Crossroads Project:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html

Slave Narratives with links to Full Text!

http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavenarratives/Slave_ Narratives.htm

The Slave Narrative Project from Washington State

University: http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/slave.htm

American Treasures from the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr004.html

African American Texts at University of Virginia E-Text

Project:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/subjects/subjects-afam.ht ml

Can also look for full text of many books through

this site: http://demo.openlibrary.org

More information on American Authors may be found at: http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/AmeLit.html# 1920

And, this site on American Literature:

http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl413/sites.htm

And, finally full text literatures collections, courtesy of the

Rutgers University Libraries : http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/eng_ lit/eng_full-text_lit.shtml