num_pages: 448
description: The success of John Henrik Clarke's American Negro Short Stories first published in 1966 affirmed the vitality and importance of black fiction. Now this expanded edition of that best-selling book with a new title offers the reader thirty-one stories included in the originalfrom Charles W. Chesnutt and Paul Laurence Dunbar in the late nineteenth century to the rich and productive work of the Harlem Renaissance: writers like Zora Neale Hurston Langston Hughes and Richard Wright; the World War II accomplishments of Chester Himes Frank Yerby and many others; and the later fiction of James Baldwin Paule Marshall and LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka). Seven additional contributions round out a century of great stories with the work of Maya Angelou Toni Cade Bambara Eugenia Collier Jennifer Jordan James Allan McPherson Rosemarie Robotham and Alice Walker. Dr. Clarke has included a new introduction to this 1993 edition and a short biography of each contributor.Lynching of Jube Benson / Paul Laurence Dunbar --On being crazy / W.E.B. Du Bois --Goophered grapevine / Charles Waddell Chesnutt --City of refuge / Rudolph Fisher --Overcoat / John P. Davis --Truant / Claude McKay --Summer tragedy / Arna Bontemps --Gilded six-bits / Zora Neale Hurston --Bright and morning star / Richard Wright --Boy who painted Christ black / John Henrik Clarke --On friday morning / Langston Hughes --So peaceful in the country / Carl Ruthven Offord --And/or / Sterling Brown --Fighter / John Caswell Smith --Homecoming / Frank Yerby --How John Boscoe outsung the devil / Arthur P. Davis --Solo on the drums / Ann Petry --Mama's missionary money / Chester Himes --See how they run / Mary Elizabeth Vroman --Exodus / James Baldwin --God bless America / John O. Killens --Train whistle guitar / Albert Murray. Senegalese / Hoyt W. Fuller --A matter of time / Frank London Brown --Cry for me / William Melvin Kelley --Reena / Paule Marshall --Convert / Lerone Bennett Jr. --Winds of change / Loyle Hairston --Screamers / LeRoi Jones --Sarah / Martin J. Hamer --Sky is gray / Ernest J. Gaines --On trains / James Allen McPherson --Marigolds / Eugenia W. Collier --Steady going up / Maya Angelou --Everyday use / Alice Walker --Organizer's wife / Toni Cade Bambara --Jesse / Rosemarie Robotham --The wife / Jennifer Jordan
language: English
title: Black American Short Stories: A Century of the Best
publisher: Hill and Wang