Product Description

From its beginnings in 1919, with soldiers returning from the Great War, to its sputtering end in 1934, with the Great Depression, the New Negro Movement in arts and letters proclaimed the experience of African American men and women. This magnificent volume features a wealth of fiction and nonfiction works by 45 writers from that exuberant era.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #200168 in Books
• Published on: 1995-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 816 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140170368
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
This collection magnificently represents the great voices of this era. The volume includes the work of some forty-five Renaissance figures: short fiction and self-contained novel excerpts by Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Wallace Thurman, and Jean Toomer; poems by Gwendolyn Bennett, Countee Cullen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay; essays, manifestos, speeches, and nostalgic reminiscences by Romare Bearden, W. E. B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, and Richard Wright.

From Library Journal
Editor Lewis is a noted author of several books, e.g., When Harlem Was in Vogue ( LJ 3/15/81) and, most recently, W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 ( LJ 8/93). This hefty tome features many significant essays, poems, and stories not readily available to all scholars that are drawn from African American journals of the period, including Opportunity, Crisis, and Fire! In his introduction, Lewis carefully explores tension within this arts and letters movement. The collected excerpts of writers like Cullen, Hurston, Hughes, McKay, DuBois, and Wright represent a balance between those Renaissance supporters and writers who "saw the small cracks in the wall of racism that could, they anticipated, be widened through the production of exemplary racial images" and those who "saw art not as politics by other means--civil rights between covers or from a stage or an easel." This anthology will balance and enhance any modern American literature collection.
- Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of black culture centered in Harlem between the termination of World War I and the end of the Depression, from which emerged a body of literature that has yet to reach its maximum level of general appreciation. The best of that literature, or at least the most exemplary, is sampled here, with works being presented either in toto or in telling excerpt. General categories include essay, memoir, fiction, poetry, and drama; specific writers include such expected names as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay, but lesser-known names are also represented. There is anger in these pages and also frustration, pride, pain, and elation, but above all there is incredible talent. Reading the collection straight through would be a wonderful education, but most readers will dip in here and there, and that is edifying, too. The editor, David L. Lewis, author of W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 (Booklist's 1993 Top of the List winner for Adult Nonfiction), provides an exceptionally informative introduction. Brad Hooper

Customer Reviews

Very well put together.
I give this book five stars because it has a wonderful cross-section of female and male Harlem Renaissance writers, and also because it includes fiction, prose (articles and essays), and poetry. This volume is nicely compiled, and it is a lovely companion to similar anthologies, such as "Trouble the Water," which is an anthology of black poetry from slavery through modern times. Also, because the Harlem Renaissance happened so long ago, The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader includes works and excerpts from works that are seemingly out of print, such as a selection by Carter G. Woodson. This book has a lovely variety of practically every genre of literature, and is a must for any African-American studies scholar, though it is a capable volume for any student of literature, period. The only possible drawback of this book is that it contains a lot of excerpts. If you enjoy a certain excerpt (and it is almost guaranteed that you will), finding a copy of its parent body of work will become frustratingly high on your list of priorities. The Harlem Renaissance Reader is truly reccommended.

After some initial readings & browsing, it's the bomb
The poetry is really good, only I wish there were a little more. The prose writings have some really excellent sources. Good for an educational text for students covering the period.

Excellent source for the Harlem Renaissance writers
This is a fantastic source for essays by many of the Harlem Renaissance writers. Every convievable writer is highlighted in this book, from W.E.B. Dubois, to Alain Locke, to George S. Schuyler. Their most influential essays are presented in this book.