Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967


Book Description

The work of Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes is a celebration of the triumphant creative spirit in African-American life. From the welding of their friendship in 1925 until Hughes's death in 1967, this volume gathers the best of the forty-two years of correspondence between them. The first letters, written in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, witness the struggle of two young writers searching for a voice and an identity. By 1941, both Bontemps and Hughes had achieved a certain degree of success, and had become increasingly involved in racial and social struggles. Finally, in the period between 1959 and 1967, we see them react to the civil rights movement. This fascinating collection makes an invaluable contribution to the understanding of twentieth century American culture and one of its most vital components, the African-American heritage which these two correspondents did so much to create. --From book cover.







Selected Letters of Langston Hughes


Book Description

This is the first comprehensive selection from the correspondence of the iconic and beloved Langston Hughes. It offers a life in letters that showcases his many struggles as well as his memorable achievements. Arranged by decade and linked by expert commentary, the volume guides us through Hughes’s journey in all its aspects: personal, political, practical, and—above all—literary. His letters range from those written to family members, notably his father (who opposed Langston’s literary ambitions), and to friends, fellow artists, critics, and readers who sought him out by mail. These figures include personalities such as Carl Van Vechten, Blanche Knopf, Zora Neale Hurston, Arna Bontemps, Vachel Lindsay, Ezra Pound, Richard Wright, Kurt Weill, Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alice Walker, Amiri Baraka, and Muhammad Ali. The letters tell the story of a determined poet precociously finding his mature voice; struggling to realize his literary goals in an environment generally hostile to blacks; reaching out bravely to the young and challenging them to aspire beyond the bonds of segregation; using his artistic prestige to serve the disenfranchised and the cause of social justice; irrepressibly laughing at the world despite its quirks and humiliations. Venturing bravely on what he called the “big sea” of life, Hughes made his way forward always aware that his only hope of self-fulfillment and a sense of personal integrity lay in diligently pursuing his literary vocation. Hughes’s voice in these pages, enhanced by photographs and quotations from his poetry, allows us to know him intimately and gives us an unusually rich picture of this generous, visionary, gratifyingly good man who was also a genius of modern American letters.




Remember Me to Harlem


Book Description

Langston Hughes is widely remembered as a celebrated star of the Harlem Renaissance -- a writer whose bluesy, lyrical poems and novels still have broad appeal. What's less well known about Hughes is that for much of his life he maintained a friendship with Carl Van Vechten, a flamboyant white critic, writer, and photographer whose ardent support of black artists was peerless. Despite their differences — Van Vechten was forty-four to Hughes twenty-two when they met–Hughes’ and Van Vechten’s shared interest in black culture lead to a deeply-felt, if unconventional friendship that would span some forty years. Between them they knew everyone — from Zora Neale Hurston to Richard Wright, and their letters, lovingly and expertly collected here for the first time, are filled with gossip about the antics of the great and the forgotten, as well as with talk that ranged from race relations to blues lyrics to the nightspots of Harlem, which they both loved to prowl. It’s a correspondence that, as Emily Bernard notes in her introduction, provides “an unusual record of entertainment, politics, and culture as seen through the eyes of two fascinating and irreverent men.




The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes


Book Description

Here, for the first time, is a complete collection of Langston Hughes's poetry - 860 poems that sound the heartbeat of black life in America during five turbulent decades, from the 1920s through the 1960s.




The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II: 1941-1967, I Dream a World


Book Description

February 1, 2002 marks the 100th birthday of Langston Hughes. To commemorate the centennial of his birth, Arnold Rampersad has contributed new Afterwords to both volumes of his highly-praised biography of this most extraordinary and prolific American writer. The second volume in this masterful biography finds Hughes rooting himself in Harlem, receiving stimulation from his rich cultural surroundings. Here he rethought his view of art and radicalism, and cultivated relationships with younger, more militant writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Amiri Bakara. Rampersads Afterword to volume two looks further into his influence and how it expanded beyond the literary as a result of his love of jazz and blues, his opera and musical theater collaborations, and his participation in radio and television. In addition, Rempersad explores the controversial matter of Hughess sexuality and the possibility that, despite a lack of clear evidence, Hughes was homosexual. Exhaustively researched in archival collections throughout the country, especially in the Langston Hughes papers at Yale Universitys Beinecke Library, and featuring fifty illustrations per volume, this anniversary edition will offer a new generation of readers entrance to the life and mind of one of the twentieth centurys greatest artists.




A Historical Guide to Langston Hughes


Book Description

Langston Hughes has been an inspiration to generations of readers and writers seeking a passionate and socially responsible art. In this text, Steven Tracy has gathered a range of critics to produce an interdisciplinary approach to the historical and cultural elements reflected in Hughes's work.




Langston Hughes


Book Description

Portrays the African American writer and man of letters Langston Hughes, his Midwest roots, his college days (already a recognized poet), his travels, permanent settlement in Harlem, and involvement in the Harlem Renaissance.




The Collected Works of Langston Hughes


Book Description

The sixteen volumes are published with the goal that Hughes pursued throughout his lifetime: making his books available to the people. Each volume will include a biographical and literary chronology by Arnold Rampersad, as well as an introduction by a Hughes scholar lume introductions will provide contextual and historical information on the particular work.




A Visitor's Guide to the Literary South


Book Description

Discover and explore the most fabled venues in American letters. Follow in the footsteps of some of American literature’s most renowned writers: See the hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to pen The Great Gatsby. Step inside the Asheville, North Carolina, home that became the model for Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel. Visit the Florida lighthouse whose beacon Stephen Crane followed after his shipwreck. Wander along the West Lawn at the University o Virginia and see the house where Edgar Allan Poe lived. This literary journey will bring you to these sites and more as you travel throughout the American South. From Virginia to Louisiana, you will experience the haunts, havens, and homesteads of important writers who lived in, visited, or were inspired by the South’s fertile soil.