Visible man
Subtitle: the life of Henry Dumas
By: Jeffrey B. Leak
Publisher: The University of Georgia Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 195
ISBN-13: 9780820328706
Subjects: American Authors; Biography; African American authors
Description: Henry Dumas did not live to see most of his fiction and poetry in print. A son of Sweet Home, Arkansas, and Harlem, he devoted himself to the creation of a black literary cosmos, one in which black literature and culture were windows into the human condition. While he certainly should be understood in the context of the cultural and political movements of the 1960s--Black Arts, Black Power, and Civil Rights--his writing, and ultimately his life, were filled with ambiguities and contradictions. Dumas was shot and killed in 1968 in Harlem by a white transit policeman under circumstances never fully explained. After his death he became a kind of literary legend, but one whose full story was unknown. A devoted cadre of friends and later admirers from the 1970s to the present pushed for the publication of his work. Here, Jeffrey B. Leak offers a full examination of both Dumas's life and his creative development. Given unprecedented access to the Dumas archival materials and numerous interviews with family, friends, and writers who knew him in various contexts, Leak opens the door to Dumas's rich and at times frustrating life, giving us a layered portrait of an African American writer and his coming of age during one of the most volatile and transformative decades in American history.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages [179]-184) and index.
Table of contents: title: Arkansas boyhood; title: Skyscrapers, subways, and camels; title: Learning to read, write, and think; title: Another conversion; title: Progress, setbacks, and romance; title: Chasing change; title: Pages without a publisher; title: Headed to east boogie; title: From sweet home to Harlem; title: Epilogue.