african american authors

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..

Contains twenty-five conversations held between Toni Morrison and journalists, scholars, and novelists over the course of nearly thirty years, in which the Nobel Prize-winning author shares her thoughts on her life, work, African-American history and culture, and American society.

Traces the life and achievements of the twentieth-century African American novelist, who earned a reputation for his outspoken criticism of racial discrimination.

A continuation of her autobiography by the author of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and "Gather Together In my Name." Tells of her marriage and her theatrical career.

Provides a brief overview of the life, career, and achievements of American children's author and Newbery Medal winner Christopher Paul Curtis.

A collection of stories and essays in which Ernest Gaines shares the inspirations behind his books, explains why he became a writer, describes the events from his childhood that shaped his life, and discusses his portrayal of the black experience in the South.

A biography of Richard Wright, author of the acclaimed 1940 novel "Native Son," tracing his journey from his birth in a sharecropper's shack in Mississippi to international fame as a writer and activist against racism.