The guardian. [volume] (Boston, Mass.) 1901-1960, 1940-08-03
GunnHtnn N11nhRH lG1tttrH Itff Sturu
FAMOUS AUTHOR TELLS OF AID VENTURES PARIS, HARLEM
AND THE REST

For fourteen years, since the publ
cation of "The Weary Blues" in 1926.
Langston Hughes has been widely
recognized as one of the most i'm
portant young writer's in America,
white or colored. For much of that
time he has made his living exclu-
sively by his pen-probably the only
colored author to do so before the
great success of Richard Wright. Now
Mr.. Hughes has written his own story
"a story as full of color, incident,
vitality, and good humor as the man
who wrote it and the life it describes
Called "The Big Sea-" it will be pub
lished by Alfred A. Knopf on August
26.
Since he is an American, Mr..
Hughes grew up thinking of himself
as colored man. But he went to
Africa on freighter when he was
twenty-one, and the people there told
him he was not Colored at all, but
white. He has some Cherokee blood,
and some French, and some English
American, and it shows in his appear
ance. When he lived in Paris a short
time later, the people didn't care about
those things; he was, and is, a delight
full human being, and that was enough
for them.
Mr.. Hughes was born in 1902 in
Joplin, Missouri, but he spent his
growing years principally in Kansas,
in Illinois, and in Cleveland. His
parents were separated-his father
had gone to Mexico and engaged in
various business enterprises, while his
mother remained in the States,
worked for a living, and subsequently
married a second time. He stayed
as boy with his grandmother in Law
renee, and went to school like other
boys, and at twelve years old went
to church and was "saved"-a pro
ceeding he never understood at all,
but he knew he had to get up and say
he was saved or else keep the congre-
cation in church permanently, so he
got up and said it.
When he was graduated from gram
mar school in Lincoln, Illinois, he was
elected class poet, for no reason that
he could discover, as he had never
thought of writing before. But, being
poet, he had to write a poem. He
wrote it, and read it at graduation,
and everyone applauded. Thus he
became poet.
Then at high school in Cleveland,
he really discovered his poetic gift,
contributed many pieces to the school
publication, and began to collect re-
lection slips from national magazines.
And in the summer he went to Mexico
to visit his father, driving sort of
man who was interested only in MAX
ing money, and who had made it. 1t
was not pleasant summer; he was
glad to go back to Cleveland to school,
and to writing.
And right there is the pattern of
the life Mr. Hughes was to follow in
the years ahead-travel, and writing.
He has travelled in Africa and Asia,
as well as Europe and America. He
has been sailor, waiter, a chef,
teacher, a college student, a farm
hand, a Waterman, an editor, and at
least minor lion in the literary re-
naissance Of the ZOOS.
He has studied at Columbia and
Lincoln University, starved on the
Genoa waterfront, mixed on intimate
terms in the Colored society of Wash
ington and the literary society of New
York He has met jim Crow in the
South and Mr.. James Crow in the
North, and no Grow at all in Mexico
and Europe.