This classic offers a unique perspective on the 1920s and 1930s and fosters a deeper understanding of the challenges faced within the Black community.
The Classic - The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life by Wallace Thurman
In the 1920s and 1930s, southern and rural African-Americans began to move to big cities, creating communities in areas such as Harlem, New York. As these new communities grew over the years, so did their creative expression and opportunities. This explosion of new art, writing, music, and more soon became known as the Harlem Renaissance.
Wallace Thruman was an author during the Harlem Renaissance. Like many writers at the time, Thruman captured the world as it was, painting a unique image of the 1920s and 30s for readers then and now. While racism, colorism, and prejudice were topics for many works of the era, Thruma’s novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life stood out from the rest as it focused on intra-racial prejudice and colorism within the Black community.
The novel follows Emma Lou Morgan, an African-American girl born with very dark skin. Raised by her mother, who has much lighter skin, Emma Lou is subjected to skin bleaching in an attempt to lighten her skin. After attending college at USC, she moves to Harlem, where she tries to make a new life but finds even more obstacles due to her dark skin.
The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life
by Wallace Thurman
"A Black boy could get along but a Black girl would never know anything but sorrow and disappointment." Mirroring Nella Larsen's Passing, The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life is the fantastic debut of Wallace Thurman.
Emma Lou was born black. Abandoned by her father at birth, she is subject to skin bleaching by her mother who hopes to make the child more desirable. Learning that she is unwanted in white society but also ostracized within her own, Emma Lou navigates a harsh and unrelenting world as she tries to come to terms with her life and love herself in the skin she's in.
Professionally typeset with a beautifully designed cover, this edition of The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life is a reimaging of a Harlem Renaissance staple for the modern reader.
Our Modern Companion - Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston was a prolific writer during the Harlem Renaissance. She is best known for her novels, but she also wrote more than 50 short stories in her lifetime. In 2021, Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston was published, giving modern readers the first look at eight stories that have been lost in periodicals and archives since the 20s and 30s.
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance
by Zora Neale Hurston
In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston's "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston's world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer's voice and her contributions to America's literary traditions.