Literary ambition and the African American novel /
Nowlin, Michael Everett,1962-author.
"This book shows how African American literature emerged as a world-recognized literature: less as the product of a seamless tradition of writers signifying upon their ancestors than the product of three generations of ambitious, competitive individuals aiming to be the first great African American writer. It charts a canon of fictional landmarks, beginning with The House Behind the Cedars and culminating in the National Book Award-winning Invisible Man, and tells the compelling stories of the careers of key African writers, including Charles Chesnutt, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. These writers worked within the white-dominated, commercial, Eurocentric literary field to put African American literature on the world literary map, while struggling to transcend the cultural expectations attached to their position as "Negro authors." Literary Ambition and the African American Novel tells as much about the novels that these writers could not publish as it does about their major achievements"--
Includes bibliographical references (pages 234-246) and index.
"This book shows how African American literature emerged as a world-recognized literature: less as the product of a seamless tradition of writers signifying upon their ancestors than the product of three generations of ambitious, competitive individuals aiming to be the first great African American writer. It charts a canon of fictional landmarks, beginning with The House Behind the Cedars and culminating in the National Book Award-winning Invisible Man, and tells the compelling stories of the careers of key African writers, including Charles Chesnutt, James Weldon Johnson, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. These writers worked within the white-dominated, commercial, Eurocentric literary field to put African American literature on the world literary map, while struggling to transcend the cultural expectations attached to their position as "Negro authors." Literary Ambition and the African American Novel tells as much about the novels that these writers could not publish as it does about their major achievements"--
American fiction
African Americans
African Americans in literature.
Authorship
African Americans in literature.
African Americans
American fiction
Authorship
Literary ambition and the African American novel