the letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten
These engaging and wonderfully alive letters paint an intimate portrait of two of the most important and influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Carl Van Vechtenolder, established, and whitewas at first a mentor to the younger, gifted, and black Langston Hughes. But the relationship quickly grew into a great friendshipand for nearly four decades the two men wrote to each other expressively and constantly. They discussed literature and publishing. They gossiped about the people they knew in commonJames Baldwin, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, H. L. Mencken. They wrote from near (of racism in Scottsboro) and far (of dancing in Cuba and trekking across the Soviet Union), and always with playfulness and mutual affection..
