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| Poesie Romantiche |
| Letterat. Latina | Letterat. Africana | Letterat. Araba | Letterat.Greca |
| Letterat. Tedesca | Letterat. Francese | Letterat. Inglese | Letterat. Russa |
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| Questo articolo è rilasciato sotto i termini della GNU Free Documentation License Esso utilizza materiale tratto da http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letteratura_africana Cronologia/Autori: http://it.wikipedia.org/Letteratura_africana Letteratura africanaDa Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera.Per letteratura africana si intende in genere l'insieme delle opere letterarie di autori appartenenti alle popolazioni indigene dei paesi dell'Africa subsahariana (e in alcuni casi alle popolazioni nere del Corno d'Africa); si escludono in altre parole sia la letteratura dei Berberi del Sahara e del bacino del mar Mediterraneo che le opere di autori nati o vissuti in Africa ma di origine e cultura sostanzialmente europea. |
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L'alfabetizzazione si è diffusa in Africa subsahariana nel XIX secolo, in seguito all'opera dei missionari cristiani; la letteratura africana precedente all'incontro con le culture europee è quindi quasi integralmente costituita da tradizione orale. In epoca coloniale, molti africani ebbero modo di studiare nelle scuole degli europei, e di venire in contatto con la tradizione letteraria del paese colonizzatore; in questo periodo cominciarono quindi ad apparire romanzi, racconti, opere teatrali e poesie di autori africani. Soprattutto nel periodo tardo coloniale e post coloniale, la matrice europea della letteratura africana fu deliberatamente messa in discussione, e la letteratura africana iniziò a recuperare elementi tradizionali e linguistici indigeni (non raramente, nel contesto di una critica anche politica verso il colonialismo e i suoi effetti).
[modifica] Aspetti comuniLa letteratura africana include in effetti un vasto insieme di produzioni letterarie di paesi con culture e tradizioni anche radicalmente diverse. Non si può neppure parlare di letterature nazionali, in quanto ogni nazione africana in genere conta più etnie con culture diverse (per esempio, lo scrittore Chinua Achebe non si autodefiniva "nigeriano", ma "ibo"). A questa eterogeneità culturale originaria si è andata ad aggiungere quella legata alla colonizzazione da parte di diverse potenze europee (Francia, Inghilterra, Germania e così via) che hanno portato la propria lingua e la propria tradizione letteraria. Ciononostante, è possibile identificare alcuni tratti comuni praticamente a tutte le letterature africane subsahariane.
[modifica] Aspetti linguisticiUn tratto che accomuna le letterature africane è la diglossia, ovvero il ricorso più o meno frequente a parole ed espressioni della lingua tradizionale (etnica) dello scrittore. A volte tali espressioni sono tradotte nel testo, altre volte in appendice, in altri casi non sono affatto tradotte (o perché intraducibili, o perché giudicate più consone al soggetto della narrazione, in genere ambientata nel paese natio dello scrittore). Le lingue europee sono talvolta usate nella loro forma standard, ma spesso sono anche applicate nella forma modificata dall'uso africano, fino all'estremo del pidgin; particolare dignità letteraria ha assunto il pidgin inglese-nigeriano con le opere di Cyprian Ekwensi (Jagua Nana, 1961), di Chinua Achebe (Anthills of the Savannah) e di Ken Saro-Wiwa.
[modifica] Contenuti tradizionaliAltri tratti comuni delle letterature africane dipendono dagli aspetti di omogeneità delle stesse culture africane. Uno di questi è il riferimento costante, esplicito o implicito, alla tradizione orale, che in tutta l'Africa subsahariana è in genere costituito da un vasto patrimonio folkloristico di storie popolari, leggende, miti e favole. Le opere letterarie africane tendono ad avere una voce narrante che utilizza lo stile e il linguaggio tipiche della storia recitata dagli anziani, incluso per esempio il frequente uso di proverbi. Altri elementi ricorrenti riconducibili alla tradizione orale sono un concetto di tempo non sempre lineare, o l'inclusione di una dimensione magica come aspetto normale della realtà. Molti di questi elementi si trovano in una delle prime opere letterarie africane di rilievo, Il bevitore di vino di palma di Amos Tutuola (1952), che è in effetti una favola Yoruba tradotta in inglese.
[modifica] Ruolo dello scrittoreSempre in accordo con la tradizione orale precoloniale, il narratore-scrittore delle opere letterarie africane si pone idealmente come guida e maestro della sua gente. Nel contesto del declino del colonialismo, questa funzione assunse naturalmente, quasi ovunque, connotazioni politiche. Lo scrittore si pose dapprima come critico della potenza imperiale, e poi come critico dei governi corrotti che si sostituirono in molti paesi dell'Africa agli europei nel periodo immediatamente successivo all'indipendenza. Non di rado gli scrittori africani pagarono personalmente il prezzo di questo impegno politico: alcuni con la prigione (per esempio i nigeriani Wole Soyinka e Achebe o il keniota Ngugi wa Thiong'o), altri addirittura con la vita (il nigeriano Saro-Wiwa).
[modifica] Letteratura precolonialeQuasi ovunque nell'Africa subsahariana, l'alfabetizzazione fu portata dai missionari cristiani nel XIX secolo. Con rare eccezioni (per esempio le Sorabe, le "grandi scritture" malgasce, scritte con l'alfabeto arabo), la letteratura precoloniale coincide con la sola tradizione orale. Canzoni, poesie, storie popolari, miti e leggende erano tramandate per intrattenere i bambini, per preservare valori sociali e religiosi, e in alcuni casi per tramandare il ricordo storico o pseudostorico di grandi eventi o personaggi del passato. Uno dei canoni più diffusi nella tradizione orale africana è il racconto di un "trucco" usato da un animale di piccole dimensioni per sopravvivere all'incontro/scontro con un predatore. Alcuni "animali astuti" della tradizione sono protagonisti di numerose storie e ricordati con un proprio nome: esempi sono Anansi, un ragno del folklore Ashanti (Ghana); Àjàpá, una tartaruga della trazione Yoruba (Nigeria) e Sungura, una lepre di cui trattano numerose storie dell'Africa orientale e centrale.
[modifica] Letteratura colonialeDurante il periodo coloniale, gli indigeni africani appresero la lingua del paese colonizzatore (e talvolta anche una certa familirità con la sua letteratura) e ricevettero contemporaneamente l'alfabetizzazione; la conseguenza fu la pubblicazione delle prime opere letterarie africane in lingue europee. Il tema di queste opere è spesso legato alle vicende della tratta degli schiavi africani; è celebre per esempio l'opera di Olaudah Equiano, uno schiavo liberato che racconta la propria vita in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African ("L'interessante racconto della vita di Olaudah Equiano, o Gustavo Vassa l'Africano", 1789). Nello stesso periodo emergono le prime opere di scrittori bianchi vissuti, o talvolta anche nati, nelle colonie; un esempio celebre è The Story of an African Farm ("La storia di una fattoria africana", 1883) della scrittrice sudafricana Olive Schreiner. Se si esclude l'opera di Equiano, il primo romanzo scritto da un nero africano a ricevere importanti consensi in Europa fu Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation ("Etiopia liberata: studi sull'emancipazione della razza", 1911) dello scrittore della Costa d'Oro (oggi Ghana) Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford. Uno dei più celebri romanzi africani precedenti alla Seconda guerra mondiale è il già citato romanzo di Amos Tutuola, Il bevitore di vino di palma (scritto negli anni '40, ma pubblicato solo nel 1952). La prima opera teatrale scritta da un nero africano fu The Girl Who Killed to Save: Nongquase the Liberator ("La ragazza che uccideva per salvare: Nongquase la liberatrice", 1935) del sudafricano Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo. In Africa orientale, il primato spesso a The Black Hermit ("L'eremita nero", 1962) del keniota Ngugi wa Thiong'o, una storia educativa sul "tribalismo" (il razzismo fra tribù). Ngugi sarebbe poi diventato uno degli scrittori di spicco del Kenya post coloniale. In periodo tardo-coloniale (dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale), la letteratura africana iniziò a connotarsi in modo sempre più decisamente politico e indipendentista. Oltre che per i temi trattati, spesso orientati alla critica del colonialismo e alla denuncia del suo impatto sulla cultura e sulla società indigene, la letteratura tardo-coloniale si pone come indipendentista anche nella scelta delle forme, che frequentemente mirano a una riscoperta e rivalutazione della tradizione culturale e linguistica locale. Nelle colonie francesi un tema comune è quello della négritude. Fra le opere più rappresentative di quest'epoca va citata la raccolta Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française ("Antologia della nuova poesia nera e malgascia in francese", 1948), compilata e pubblicata dal poeta Léopold Sédar Senghor, che in seguito sarebbe diventato presidente del Senegal. La prefazione di quest'opera imponente fu firmata da Jean-Paul Sartre.
[modifica] Letteratura postcolonialeCon la conquista dell'indipendenza da parte delle colonie, a partire dagli anni '50 e anni '60, la letteratura africana conobbe un momento di grandissimo sviluppo, con l'emergere di numerosi nuovi autori, spesso riconosciuti a livello internazionale (nel 1986, il Premio Nobel per la letteratura fu assegnato al nigeriano Wole Soyinka). In parte, la letteratura post coloniale deriva direttamente, per temi e scelte stilistiche, da quella dell'ultimo periodo coloniale: per esempio, si tratta del rapporto conflittuale fra la cultura occidentale e quella indigena e si continua la riscoperta della tradizione locale. A questi elementi si va ad aggiungere la denuncia dei nuovi problemi delle nazioni africane post coloniali, quali la corruzione del mondo politico, le disuguaglianze economiche della nuova società, la dittatura, il dramma delle guerre civili. In questo periodo si affiancano le opere scritte nelle lingue coloniali (soprattutto inglese, francese, portoghese) e le prime opere scritte completamente in lingue africane (per esempio, le opere in lingua gikuyu d Ngugi wa Thiong'o). Dopo l'indipendenza diventano anche molto più numerose le scrittrici, e la condizione della donna diventa un tema importante.
[modifica] Chinua Achebe
La nascita della letteratura africana post-coloniale si fa generalmente coincidere con la pubblicazione del romanzo Il crollo (Things Fall Apart, 1958) del nigeriano ibo Chinua Achebe. La storia è ambientata nella Nigeria di fine Ottocento. La vicenda del protagonista, Okonkwo, coincide con l'avvento del dominio coloniale. Lo scopo dell'opera è la rappresentazione della cultura africana nativa (ibo), che la dominazione europea avrebbe in seguito in gran parte modificato e distorto. Quando il protagonista del romanzo torna al villaggio, dopo sette anni d’esilio, trova una comunità irriconoscibile, divisa tra cristiani e non cristiani; di fronte alla fine del vecchio mondo, Okonkwo si uccide. Il "crollo" a cui allude il titolo dell'opera è quindi inteso come il crollo della cultura africana causato dal dominio dei bianchi. La freccia di Dio (The Arrow of God, 1964) riprende alcuni temi di Things Fall Apart; ancora ambientato in periodo coloniale, enfatizza il ruolo che Achebe attribuisce al cristianesimo come strumento di divisione e indebolimento della cultura ibo. In Ormai a disagio (No Longer at Ease, 1960) e A Man of the People (1966) Achebe sposta la propria indagine al presente, attaccando l'individualismo della cultura nigeriana post-coloniale. In No Longer at Ease il protagonista si scopre incapace di superare il tabù della differenza di casta e sposare la donna che ama e incapace di evitare la corruzione per pagare alla donna le spese dell'aborto, e in questo modo viene suo malgrado a essere la dimostrazione lampante dello stereotipo bianco del nero arretrato e disonesto. A Man of the People (un best seller con milioni di copie vendute) narra di un ministro della cultura altrettanto ignorante e corrotto, e ciononostante popolarissimo presso la sua gente. La voce narrante (significativamente attribuita a un insegnante), pur esprimendo il proprio dissenso, non può che constatare il crollo degli antichi valori del villaggio. Fra le opere più recenti di Achebe, particolare importanza ha I formicai della savana (Anthills of the Savannah, pubblicato in Italia anche col titolo Viandanti della storia), che si discosta dai precedenti per un più ampio spettro etnico dei personaggi e per un consistente ricorso al pidgin. Il romanzo aggiorna la riflessione politica sulla realtà post coloniale africana; non si tratta più solo di corruzione, ma anche delle spietate lotte per il potere tra élite prive di scrupoli e di rispetto per la vita delle persone comuni.
[modifica] Ayi Kwei Armah
L'opera del ghanese Ayi Kwei Armah, di poco successiva a quella di Achebe, si sviluppa attorno alla denuncia della corruzione e della brutalità dei regimi seguiti all'indipendenza. Nella società descritta da The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), ogni gruppo di potere corrotto che viene scalzato lascia semplicemente il proprio posto a un successore non meno corrotto e violento. Nel successivo Fragments, il protagonista tornato nel suo paese, divenuto indipendente, è talmente umiliato da perdere la ragione. Entrambe le opere dipingono il disgusto dell'autore per la società ghanese moderna con tinte estremamente forti: sono frequenti i ricorsi a metafore scatologiche, ed è netta l'allusione alla schizofrenia come unica possibile condizione mentale dei ghanesi costretti a vivere nel mondo di doppia cultura e doppi valori lasciato dal colonialismo. Two Thousands Seasons (1973) e The Healers (1978) riprendono gli stessi temi in chiave storico-mitica, ripercorrendo la storia dell'Africa come vittima dell'imperialismo arabo prima ed europeo poi. The Healers, in particolare, ricostruisce la caduta dell'Impero degli Ashanti di fronte agli inglesi.
[modifica] Ngugi wa Thiong'o
In Kenya, il periodo successivo all'indipendenza ebbe una storia del tutto peculiare, soprattutto in seguito alla rivolta dei Mau-Mau. Il travaglio di questo paese fu raccontato dallo scrittore Ngugi wa Thiong'o. L'opera di Ngugi è dichiaratamente (talvolta quasi didatticamente) marxista, e indica al popolo kenyota la difesa della proprietà collettiva della terra come strumento fondamentale di riscatto. I suoi due primi romanzi Wheep Not, Child (1964) e The River Between (1965) riflettono l'idealismo dell'autore e l'incertezza sul futuro del suo paese. La rivolta dei Mau Mau è il tema centrale del successivo A Grain of Wheat (1967), da molti considerato il capolavoro di N'Gugi. Il romanzo descrive una società in cui il tradimento e la falsità sono la norma, predicando allo stesso tempo, con toni epici ed eroici, l'attaccamento alla terra e l'ineluttabilità della rivolta. Il "chicco di grano" del titolo è un riferimento a San Paolo: il chicco di grano, con la sua morte, farà nascere una nuova spiga. L'eroismo dei Mau Mau di A Grain of Wheat si ritrova in altri personaggi di N'Gugi, come Kimathi (protagonista di The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, 1976, scritto con Micere Githae Mugo), Matigari, eroe dell’omonimo romanzo del 1987, o il villaggio di In Petals of Blood (1977). N'Gugi si distingue da altri autori della letteratura africana del Novecento anche per aver deciso di scrivere alcune delle sue opere in lingua gikuyu, la sua lingua madre. All'uso della lingua natia si accompagnano non raramente temi particolarmente forti da un punto di vista politico; un esempio è il dramma Ngaahika ndeenda, che valse a N'Gugi il carcere.
[modifica] Nuruddin Farah
Per Nuruddin Farah, nato in Somalia nel 1945, il problema linguistico era particolarmente forte. Date le vicissitudini coloniali della Somalia, Farah aveva dovuto imparare a leggere arabo, amarico, inglese e italiano; mentre non esisteva una lingua somala scritta (sarebbe nata solo nel 1972). Il romanzo d'esordio, From a Crooked Rib (1970), è un sorprendente ritratto di una donna che si ribella alla tradizione; viene considerato come uno dei più penetranti romanzi sulla condizione femminile in Africa. Significativo è anche Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), che muove dall'indagine "poliziesca" del protagonista sulla morte del fratello per trattare poi della cultura somala, e della sua tradizione orale. In forte relazione con la tradizione orale somala, infatti, Farah fa un ampio uso della contaminazione di diversi generi, della diglossia e di altre forme di sperimentazione linguistica fino al riferimento alla poesia coranica (in Close Sesame, 1983). L'atteggiamento di Farah rispetto alla tradizione, nonostante i frequenti omaggi stilistici, è fortemente critico, come emerge dalle sue opere sulla condizione della donna africana (oltre al già citato Crooked Rib, anche Sardines (1981). Tuttavia, non meno violento Farah fu nei confronti della dittatura di Siad Barre, che lo costrinse all'esilio nel 1974.
[modifica] Altri autoriUno dei più validi scrittori nigeriani affermatisi negli anni Ottanta, Ken Saro-Wiwa (1945-1995), fu assassinato dal regime. Il suo Sozaboy (1985), che linguisticamente aveva colpito per il suo "rotten English" ("inglese marcio"), racconta in prima persona le vicende di un giovane soldato nella guerra civile (1967-1970), con un taglio picaresco in cui attraverso la comicità viene denunciata la follia della guerra. Nei lavori successivi, Prisoners of Jebs (1988) e Pita Dumbrok’s Prison (1991), Saro-Wiwa aveva messo in luce il disperante livello di disgregazione della società nigeriana. Ben Okri è un altro brillante scrittore nigeriano, fuggito dal regime e residente a Londra. L'opera che lo ha fatto conoscere dalla critica è La via della fame (The Famished Roads, 1991), una rappresentazione surreale e onirica della società nigeriana, vista attraverso gli occhi di un abiku, un bambino tornato dal mondo dei morti (figura tradizionale della cultura yoruba). Se La via della fame si può ricondurre al realismo magico, altre opere di Okri sono più convenzionali; un esempio è Dangerous Love (1996, riscrittura del romanzo giovanile The Landscapes Within). Vicini al realismo magico sono anche i romanzi ghanesi Search Sweet Country (1986) e Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) di Kojo Laing, Comes the Voyager at Last (1991) di Kofi Awoonor e Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar (1990) di Syl Cheney-Cooker; quest'ultimo esplicitamente riconosce l'influenza sulla propria opera di Garcìa Màrquez. Cheney-Cooker, apprezzato poeta e autore di diverse raccolte di versi, è un discendente degli schiavi liberati che nel XVIII secolo popolarono Freetown, capitale della Sierra Leone. Con The Last Harmattan Cheney-Cooker ha inteso dare alla Sierra Leone il primo vero romanzo, ripercorrendone la storia post-coloniale con toni epici; protagonisti sono un gruppo di ex schiavi che tornano nel paese e si devono confrontare (loro che ormai parlano quasi solo inglese) con le etnie locali ancora radicate nel territorio. L'incontro avviene nel contesto di una realtà in cui si confondono natura e magia, vita e morte, passato e presente. Ancora la violenza del mondo coloniale e postcoloniale è il tema centrale dell'opera dello zimbabwense Dambuzdo Marechera (1952-1987), autore di una narrativa inquietante e sperimentale sul piano linguistico e stilistico.
[modifica] Teatro
[modifica] Wole Soyinka
Il nigeriano Wole Soyinka, Premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1986, è considerato il più importante drammaturgo africano. Dopo aver studiato a Leeds e lavorato al Royal Court Theatre di Londra, Soyinka tornò in Nigeria nel 1960 e diede vita a una forma teatrale innovativa contaminando la tradizione occidentale e quella popolare nigeriana e yoruba e unendo le ritualità africane e le soluzioni metateatrali del teatro occidentale moderno. Fra le sue opere teatrali più celebri si possono citare Death and the King’s Horsman (1975) e A Play of Giants (1984). Fra le opere letterarie non teatrali di Soyinka particolarmente celebre è il romanzo autobiografico Akè (1981), che ripercorre la sua infanzia fra tradizione yoruba e modelli occidentali. Altre opere precedenti, come The Interpreters (1965) e Season of Anomy (1973), affrontano il problema dell'evoluzione della società nigeriana, sebbene con toni sempre più temperati di quelli di Achebe o Armah. In The Interpreters, un gruppo di intellettuali yoruba si interroga sul presente, con poca fiducia sulle capacità delle giovani generazioni. In Season of Anomy, scritto durante la guerra civile (Soyinka restò due anni in carcere), si confrontano un cauto riformismo e una inaffidabile volontà rivoluzionaria.
[modifica] Altri autori di teatroIl teatro africano in lingua inglese si muove in genere nella direzione tracciata da Soyinka, con una commistione creativa di modelli teatrali occidentali e forme di spettacolo africane; si possono citare in questo senso Femi Osofisan, Ola Rotimi, e gli artisti che operarono presso lo Mbari Club di Ibadan.
[modifica] PoesiaLa poesia africana in lingua inglese è quasi sempre caratterizzata dalla sperimentazione linguistica e stilistica e dalla contaminazione fra la cultura poetica britannica e la tradizione dei canti africani. I poeti che hanno dato contributi particolarmente significativi in questo senso vengono in genere classificati come autori della alter-native tradition ("tradizione alter-nativa") africana, dove "nativo" si riferisce non solo al recupero del folklore e della lingua nativa ma anche, come nel caso dei romanzieri, all'interpretazione tradizionale del ruolo sociale del poeta come voce e maestro della sua gente. Anche in questo caso si trova una forte enfasi sulla denuncia politica. Il primo autore di rilievo è probabilmente il nigeriano Gabriel Okara, i cui primi versi furono pubblicati sulla rivista Black Orpheus nel 1957. Okara trae alcuni elementi dalla poesia romantica inglese, unendoli alla tradizione linguistica e culturale del proprio popolo. La sua opera più nota è la raccolta The Fisherman's Invocation (1978). Assai più complessa fu l'opera di Christopher Okigbo (1932-1967), artefice di una sofisticata ibridazione di retorica classica, poesia modernista e folklore ibo. I suoi versi affrontano temi di natura religiosa (cristianesimo e religione africana), politica, psicologica e culturale. L'opera più importante di Okigbo è probabilmente Labyrints, with Path of Thunder (1971), pubblicato postumo (Okigbo fu ucciso nel corso della guerra civile), strutturata in due parti: in Labyrints prevalgono aspetti più personali, seppur collegati al contesto sociale, mentre in Path of Thunder l'accento è sui male endemici della politica nigeriana. Tra i poeti della stessa generazione vanno citati J. P. Clark (1935), anch'egli nigeriano, autore di un verso più facile ma di notevole presa emotiva, spesso ricorrente ai modi della favola e della cronaca; e Kofi Awoonor (1935), ghanese, che attinge ampiamente al canto popolare dell'etnia Ewe. Altri poeti noti nel filone della alter-native tradition sono Tanure Ojaide, Odia Ofeimun, Niyi Osundare e Jack Mapanje, poeta del Malawi (anch'egli fra coloro che scontarono con il carcere il suo impegno politico). Un caso a parte è rappresentato dal poeta ugandese Okot p’Bitek (1931-1982), la cui opera è volta soprattutto a valorizzare la cultura (soprattutto il folklore) dell'etnia Acoli attraverso la pubblicazione in inglese.
[modifica] Principali opere
[modifica] Principali scrittori
[modifica] Voci correlate
[modifica] Bibliografia
[modifica] Collegamenti esterni |
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GNU Free Documentation License Esso utilizza materiale tratto da http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_literature Cronologia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=African_American_literature&action=history African American literatureFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAfrican American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. The genre traces its origins to the works of such late 18th century writers as Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, reached early high points with slave narratives and the Harlem Renaissance, and continues today with authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Walter Mosley being ranked among the top writers in the United States. Among the themes and issues explored in African American literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and equality. African American writing has also tended to incorporate within itself oral forms such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues and rap.[1] As African Americans' place in American society has changed over the centuries, so, too, have the foci of African American literature. Before the American Civil War, African American literature primarily focused on the issue of slavery, as indicated by the subgenre of slave narratives. At the turn of the 20th century, books by authors such as W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington debated whether to confront or appease racist attitudes in the United States. During the American Civil Rights movement, authors such as Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about issues of racial segregation and black nationalism. Today, African American literature has become accepted as an integral part of American literature, with books such as Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and Beloved by Toni Morrison achieving both best-selling and award-winning status.
[edit] Characteristics and themesIn broad terms, African American literature can be defined as writings by people of African descent living in the United States of America. However, just as African American history and life is extremely varied, so too is African American literature.[2] That said, African American literature has generally focused on themes of particular interest to Black people in the United States, such as the role of African Americans within the larger American society and what it means to be an American.[3] As Princeton University professor Albert J. Raboteau has said, all African-American studies, including African American literature, "speaks to the deeper meaning of the African-American presence in this nation. This presence has always been a test case of the nation's claims to freedom, democracy, equality, the inclusiveness of all."[4] As such, it can be said that African American Literature explores the very issues of freedom and equality which were long denied to Black people in the United States, along with further themes such as African American culture, racism, religion, slavery, a sense of home.[5] and more. African American literature constitutes a vital branch of the literature of the African diaspora, with African American literature both being influenced by the great African diasporic heritage[6] and in turn influencing African diasporic writings in many countries. In addition, African American literature exists within the larger realm of post-colonial literature, even though scholars draw a distinctive line between the two by stating that "African American literature differs from most post-colonial literature in that it is written by members of a minority community who reside within a nation of vast wealth and economic power."[7] African American oral culture is rich in poetry, including spirituals, African American gospel music, blues and rap. This oral poetry also shows up in the African American tradition of Christian sermons, which make use of deliberate repetition, cadence and alliteration. African American literature—especially written poetry, but also prose—has a strong tradition of incorporating all of these forms of oral poetry.[8] However, while these characteristics and themes exist on many levels of African American literature, they are not the exclusive definition of the genre and don't exist within all works within the genre. In addition, there is resistance to using Western literary theory to analyze African American literature. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of the most important African American literary scholars, once said, "My desire has been to allow the black tradition to speak for itself about its nature and various functions, rather than to read it, or analyze it, in terms of literary theories borrowed whole from other traditions, appropriated from without."[9]
[edit] History
[edit] Early African American literatureJust as African American history predates the emergence of the United States as an independent country, so too does African American literature have similarly deep roots. Phillis Wheatley Among the first prominent African American authors was poet Phillis Wheatley (1753–84), who published her book Poems on Various Subjects in 1773, three years before American independence. Born in Senegal, Africa, Wheatley was captured and sold into slavery at the age of seven. Brought to America, she was owned by a Boston merchant. Even though she initially spoke no English, by the time she was sixteen she had mastered the language. Her poetry was praised by many of the leading figures of the American Revolution, including George Washington, who personally thanked her for a poem she wrote in his honor. Despite this, many white people found it hard to believe that a Black woman could be so intelligent as to write poetry. As a result, Wheatley had to defend herself in court by proving she actually wrote her own poetry. Some critics cite Wheatley's successful defense as the first recognition of African American literature.[10] Another early African American author was Jupiter Hammon (1711–1806?). Hammon, considered the first published Black writer in America, published his poem "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries" as a broadside in early 1761. In 1778 he wrote an ode to Phillis Wheatley, in which he discussed their shared humanity and common bonds. In 1786, Hammon gave his well-known Address to the Negroes of the State of New York. Hammon wrote the speech at age seventy-six after a lifetime of slavery and it contains his famous quote, "If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves." Hammon's speech also promoted the idea of a gradual emancipation as a way of ending slavery.[11] It is thought that Hammon stated this plan because he knew that slavery was so entrenched in American society that an immediate emancipation of all slaves would be difficult to achieve. Hammon apparently remained a slave until his death. His speech was later reprinted by several groups opposed to slavery. William Wells Brown (1814–84) and Victor Séjour (1817–74) produced the earliest works of fiction by African American writers. Séjour was born free in New Orleans and moved to France at the age of 19. There he published his short story "Le Mulâtre" ("The Mulatto") in 1837; the story represents the first known fiction by an African American, but written in French and published in a French journal, it had apparently no influence on later American literature. Séjour never returned to African American themes in his subsequent works. Brown, on the other hand, was a prominent abolitionist, lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery in the Southern United States, Brown escaped to the North, where he worked for abolitionist causes and was a prolific writer. Brown wrote what is considered to be the first novel by an African American, Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853). The novel is based on what was at that time considered to be a rumor about Thomas Jefferson fathering a daughter with his slave, Sally Hemings. However, because the novel was published in England, the book is not considered the first African American novel published in the United States. This honor instead goes to Harriet Wilson, whose novel Our Nig (1859) details the difficult lives of Northern free Blacks.
[edit] Slave narrativesA subgenre of African American literature which began in the middle of the 19th century is the slave narrative. At the time, the controversy over slavery led to impassioned literature on both sides of the issue, with books like Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) representing the abolitionist view of the evils of slavery, while the so-called Anti-Tom literature by white, southern writers like William Gilmore Simms represented the pro-slavery viewpoint. To present the true reality of slavery, a number of former slaves such as Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass wrote slave narratives, which soon became a mainstay of African American literature. Some six thousand former slaves from North America and the Caribbean wrote accounts of their lives, with about 150 of these published as separate books or pamphlets. Slave narratives can be broadly categorized into three distinct forms: tales of religious redemption, tales to inspire the abolitionist struggle, and tales of progress. The tales written to inspire the abolitionist struggle are the most famous because they tend to have a strong autobiographical motif. Many of them are now recognized as the most literary of all 19th-century writings by African Americans, with two of the best-known being Frederick Douglass's autobiography and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861).
[edit] Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass While Frederick Douglass (c. 1818–95) first came to public attention as an orator and as the author of his autobiographical slave narrative, he eventually became the most prominent African American of his time and one of the most influential lecturers and authors in American history. Born into slavery in Maryland, Douglass eventually escaped and worked for numerous abolitionist causes. He also edited a number of newspapers. Douglass' best-known work is his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which was published in 1845. At the time some critics attacked the book, not believing that a black man could have written such an eloquent work. Despite this, the book was an immediate bestseller. Douglas later revised and expanded his autobiography, which was republished as My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In addition to serving in a number of political posts during his life, he also wrote numerous influential articles and essays.
[edit] Post-slavery eraAfter the end of slavery and the American Civil War, a number of African American authors continued to write nonfiction works about the condition of African Americans in the country. Among the most prominent of these writers is W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963), one of the original founders of the NAACP. At the turn of the century, Du Bois published a highly influential collection of essays titled The Souls of Black Folk. The book's essays on race were groundbreaking and drew from DuBois's personal experiences to describe how African Americans lived in American society. The book contains Du Bois's famous quote: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line." Du Bois believed that African Americans should, because of their common interests, work together to battle prejudice and inequity. Another prominent author of this time period is Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), who in many ways represented opposite views from Du Bois. Washington was an educator and the founder of the Tuskegee Institute, a Black college in Alabama. Among his published works are Up From Slavery (1901), The Future of the American Negro (1899), Tuskegee and Its People (1905), and My Larger Education (1911). In contrast to Du Bois, who adopted a more confrontational attitude toward ending racial strife in America, Washington believed that Blacks should first lift themselves up and prove themselves the equal of whites before asking for an end to racism. While this viewpoint was popular among some Blacks (and many whites) at the time, Washington's political views would later fall out of fashion. A third writer who gained attention during this period in the US, though not a US citizen, was the Jamaican Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), a newspaper publisher, journalist, and crusader for Black nationalism through his organization the UNIA. He is best known as a champion of Black nationalism and the "back-to-Africa" movement, which encouraged people of African ancestry to return to their ancestral homeland. He wrote a number of essays published as editorials in the UNIA house organ the Negro World newspaper. Some of his lecture material and other writings were compiled and published as nonfiction books by his second wife Amy Jacques Garvey as the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Or, Africa for the Africans (1924) and More Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (1977). Paul Lawrence Dunbar, who often wrote in the rural, black dialect of the day, was the first African American poet to gain national prominence. His first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy, was published in 1893. Much of Dunbar's work, such as When Malindy Sings (1906), which includes photographs taken by the Hampton Institute Camera Club, and Joggin' Erlong (1906) provide revealing glimpses into the lives of rural African-Americans of the day. Though Dunbar died young, he was a prolific poet, essayist, novelist (among them The Uncalled, 1898 and TheFanatics, 1901) and short story writer. Even though Du Bois, Washington, and Garvey were the leading African American intellectuals and authors of their time, other African American writers also rose to prominence. Among these is Charles W. Chesnutt, a well-known essayist.
[edit] Harlem RenaissanceThe Harlem Renaissance from 1920 to 1940 brought new attention to African American literature. While the Harlem Renaissance, based in the African American community in Harlem in New York City, existed as a larger flowering of social thought and culture—with numerous Black artists, musicians, and others producing classic works in fields from jazz to theater—the renaissance is perhaps best known for the literature that came out of it. Langston Hughes, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1936 Among the most famous writers of the renaissance is poet Langston Hughes. Hughes first received attention in the 1922 poetry collection, The Book of American Negro Poetry. This book, edited by James Weldon Johnson, featured the work of the period's most talented poets (including, among others, Claude McKay, who also published three novels, Home to Harlem, Banjo and Banana Bottom and a collection of short stories). In 1926, Hughes published a collection of poetry, The Weary Blues, and in 1930 a novel, Not Without Laughter. Perhaps, Hughes' most famous poem is "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," which he wrote as a young teen. His single, most recognized character is Jesse B. Simple, a plainspoken, pragmatic Harlemite whose comedic observations appeared in Hughes's columns for the Chicago Defender and the New York Post. Simple Speaks His Mind (1950) is, perhaps, the best-known collection of Simple stories published in book form. Until his death in 1967, Hughes published nine volumes of poetry, eight books of short stories, two novels, and a number of plays, children's books, and translations. Another famous writer of the renaissance is novelist Zora Neale Hurston, author of the classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Altogether, Hurston wrote 14 books which ranged from anthropology to short stories to novel-length fiction. Because of Hurston's gender and the fact that her work was not seen as socially or politically relevant, her writings fell into obscurity for decades. Hurston's work was rediscovered in the 1970s in a famous essay by Alice Walker, who found in Hurston a role model for all female African American writers. While Hurston and Hughes are the two most influential writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, a number of other writers also became well known during this period. They include Jean Toomer, who wrote Cane, a famous collection of stories, poems, and sketches about rural and urban Black life, and Dorothy West, author of the novel The Living is Easy, which examined the life of an upper-class Black family. Another popular renaissance writer is Countee Cullen, who described everyday black life in his poems (such as a trip he made to Baltimore, which was ruined by a racial insult). Cullen's books include the poetry collections Color (1925), Copper Sun (1927), and The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927). Frank Marshall Davis's poetry collections Black Man's Verse (1935) and I am the American Negro (1937), published by Black Cat Press, earned him critical acclaim. Author Wallace Thurman also made an impact with his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life (1929), which focused on intraracial prejudice between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance marked a turning point for African American literature. Prior to this time, books by African Americans were primarily read by other Black people. With the renaissance, though, African American literature—as well as black fine art and performance art—began to be absorbed into mainstream American culture.
[edit] Civil Rights Movement eraA large migration of African Americans began during World War I, hitting its high point during World War II. During this Great Migration, Black people left the racism and lack of opportunities in the American South and settled in northern cities like Chicago, where they found work in factories and other sectors of the economy.[12] Richard Wright, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 This migration produced a new sense of independence in the Black community and contributed to the vibrant Black urban culture seen during the Harlem Renaissance. The migration also empowered the growing American Civil Rights movement, which made a powerful impression on Black writers during the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Just as Black activists were pushing to end segregation and racism and create a new sense of Black nationalism, so too were Black authors attempting to address these issues with their writings. One of the first writers to do so was James Baldwin, whose work addressed issues of race and sexuality. Baldwin, who is best known for his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, wrote deeply personal stories and essays while examining what it was like to be both Black and homosexual at a time when neither of these identities was accepted by American culture. In all, Baldwin wrote nearly 20 books, including such classics as Another Country and The Fire Next Time. Baldwin's idol and friend was author Richard Wright, whom Baldwin called "the greatest Black writer in the world for me". Wright is best known for his novel Native Son (1940), which tells the story of Bigger Thomas, a Black man struggling for acceptance in Chicago. Baldwin was so impressed by the novel that he titled a collection of his own essays Notes of a Native Son, in reference to Wright's novel. However, their friendship fell apart due to one of the book's essays, "Everybody's Protest Novel," which criticized Native Son for lacking credible characters and psychological complexity. Among Wright's other books are the autobiographical novel Black Boy (1945), The Outsider (1953), and White Man, Listen! (1957). The other great novelist of this period is Ralph Ellison, best known for his novel Invisible Man (1952), which won the National Book Award in 1953. Even though Ellison did not complete another novel during his lifetime, Invisible Man was so influential that it secured his place in literary history. After Ellison's death in 1994, a second novel, Juneteenth (1999), was pieced together from the 2,000-plus pages he had written over 40 years. A fuller version of the manuscript will be published as Three Days Before the Shooting (2008). Ralph Ellison circa 1961 The Civil Rights time period also saw the rise of female Black poets, most notably Gwendolyn Brooks, who became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize when it was awarded for her 1949 book of poetry, Annie Allen. Along with Brooks, other female poets who became well known during the 1950s and '60s are Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. During this time, a number of playwrights also came to national attention, notably Lorraine Hansberry, whose play A Raisin in the Sun focuses on a poor Black family living in Chicago. The play won the 1959 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. Another playwright who gained attention was Amiri Baraka, who wrote controversial off-Broadway plays. In more recent years, Baraka has become known for his poetry and music criticism. It is also worth noting that a number of important essays and books about human rights were written by the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. One of the leading examples of these is Martin Luther King, Jr's "Letter from Birmingham Jail".
[edit] Recent historyBeginning in the 1970s, African American literature reached the mainstream as books by Black writers continually achieved best-selling and award-winning status. This was also the time when the work of African American writers began to be accepted by academia as a legitimate genre of American literature.[13] As part of the larger Black Arts Movement, which was inspired by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, African American literature began to be defined and analyzed. A number of scholars and writers are generally credited with helping to promote and define African American literature as a genre during this time period, including fiction writers Toni Morrison and Alice Walker and poet James Emanuel. James Emanuel took a major step toward defining African American literature when he edited (with Theodore Gross) Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America, the first collection of black writings released by a major publisher.[14] This anthology, and Emanuel's work as an educator at the City College of New York (where he is credited with introducing the study of African-American poetry), heavily influenced the birth of the genre.[15] Other influential African American anthologies of this time included Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing, edited by LeRoi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka) and Larry Neal in 1968 and The Negro Caravan, co-edited by Sterling Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee in 1969. Toni Morrison, meanwhile, helped promote Black literature and authors when she worked as an editor for Random House in the 1960s and '70s, where she edited books by such authors as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones. Morrison herself would later emerge as one of the most important African American writers of the 20th century. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. Among her most famous novels is Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. This story describes a slave who found freedom but killed her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery. Another important novel is Song of Solomon, a tale about materialism and brotherhood. Morrison is the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the 1970s novelist and poet Alice Walker wrote a famous essay that brought Zora Neale Hurston and her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God back to the attention of the literary world. In 1982, Walker won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for her novel The Color Purple. An epistolary novel (a book written in the form of letters), The Color Purple tells the story of Celie, a young woman who is sexually abused by her stepfather and then is forced to marry a man who physically abuses her. The novel was later made into a film by Steven Spielberg. The 1970s also saw African American books topping the bestseller lists. Among the first books to do so was Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley. The book, a fictionalized account of Haley's family history—beginning with the kidnapping of Haley's ancestor Kunta Kinte in Gambia through his life as a slave in the United States—won the Pulitzer Prize and became a popular television miniseries. Haley also wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1965. Other important writers in recent years include literary fiction writers Gayl Jones, Ishmael Reed, Jamaica Kincaid, Randall Kenan, and John Edgar Wideman. African American poets have also garnered attention. Maya Angelou read a poem at Bill Clinton's inauguration, Rita Dove won a Pulitzer Prize and served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, and Cyrus Cassells's Soul Make a Path through Shouting was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. Cassells is a recipient of the William Carlos Williams Award. Lesser-known poets like Thylias Moss, and Natasha Trethewey also have been praised for their innovative work. Notable black playwrights include Ntozake Shange, who wrote For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf; Ed Bullins; Suzan-Lori Parks; and the prolific August Wilson, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays. Most recently, Edward P. Jones won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Known World, his novel about a black slaveholder in the antebellum South. Young African American novelists include Edwidge Danticat, David Anthony Durham, Tayari Jones, Mat Johnson, ZZ Packer and Colson Whitehead, just to name a few. African American literature has also crossed over to genre fiction. A pioneer in this area is Chester Himes, who in the 1950s and '60s wrote a series of pulp fiction detective novels featuring "Coffin" Ed Johnson and "Gravedigger" Jones, two New York City police detectives. Himes paved the way for the later crime novels of Walter Mosley and Hugh Holton. African Americans are also represented in the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, with Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Robert Fleming, Brandon Massey, Charles R. Saunders, John Ridley, John M. Faucette, Sheree Thomas and Nalo Hopkinson being just a few of the well-known authors. Finally, African American literature has gained added attention through the work of talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who repeatedly has leveraged her fame to promote literature through the medium of her Oprah's Book Club. At times, she has brought African American writers a far broader audience than they otherwise might have received.
[edit] CritiquesWhile African American literature is well accepted in the United States, there are numerous views on its significance, traditions, and theories. To the genre's supporters, African American literature arose out of the experience of Blacks in the United States, especially with regards to historic racism and discrimination, and is an attempt to refute the dominant culture's literature and power. In addition, supporters see the literature existing both within and outside American literature and as helping to revitalize the country's writing. To critics, African American literature is part of a Balkanization of American literature. In addition, there are some within the African American community who do not like how their own literature sometimes showcases Black people.
[edit] Refuting the dominant literary cultureThroughout American history, African Americans have been discriminated against and subject to racist attitudes. This experience inspired some Black writers, at least during the early years of African American literature, to prove they were the equals of white authors. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr, has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute the claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture."[16] However, by refuting the claims of the dominant culture, African American writers weren't simply "proving their worth"—they were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States. Scholars expressing this view assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity."[17] This means that, in American society, literary acceptance has traditionally been intimately tied in with the very power dynamics which perpetrated such evils as racial discrimination. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the African diaspora, African American literature thereby broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and patriarchal power."[18] This view of African American literature as a tool in the struggle for Black political and cultural liberation has been stated for decades, perhaps most famously by W.E.B DuBois.[19]
[edit] Existing both inside and outside American literatureAccording to James Madison University English professor Joanne Gabbin, African American literature exists both inside and outside American literature. "Somehow African American literature has been relegated to a different level, outside American literature, yet it is an integral part," she says.[20] This view of African American literature is grounded in the experience of Black people in the United States. Even though African Americans have long claimed an American identity, during most of United States history they were not accepted as full citizens and were actively discriminated against. As a result, they were part of America while also outside it. The same can be said for African American literature. While it exists fully within the framework of a larger American literature, it also exists as its own entity. As a result, new styles of storytelling and unique voices are created in isolation. The benefit of this is that these new styles and voices can leave their isolation and help revitalize the larger literary world (McKay, 2004). This artistic pattern has held true with many aspects of African American culture over the last century, with jazz and hip hop being just two artistic examples that developed in isolation within the Black community before reaching a larger audience and eventually revitalizing American culture. Whether African American literature will keep to this pattern in the coming years remains to be seen. Since the genre is already popular with mainstream audiences, it is possible that its ability to develop new styles and voices—or to remain "authentic," in the words of some critics—may be a thing of the past.[21]
[edit] Balkanization of American literature?Despite these views, some conservative academics and intellectuals argue that African American literature only exists as part of a balkanization of literature over the last few decades or as an extension of the culture wars into the field of literature.[22] According to these critics, literature is splitting into distinct and separate groupings because of the rise of identity politics in the United States and other parts of the world. These critics reject bringing identity politics into literature because this would mean that "only women could write about women for women, and only Blacks about Blacks for Blacks."[23] People opposed to this group-based approach to writing say that it limits the ability of literature to explore the overall human condition and, more importantly, judges ethnic writers merely on the basis of their race. These critics reject this judgment and say it defies the meaning of works like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, in which Ellison's main character is invisible because people see him as nothing more than a Black man.[24] Others criticize special treatment of any ethnic-based genre of literature. For example, Robert Hayden, the first African-American Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, once said (paraphrasing the comment by the black composer Duke Ellington about jazz and music), "There is no such thing as Black literature. There's good literature and bad. And that's all."[25] Proponents counter that the exploration of group and ethnic dynamics through writing actually deepens human understanding and that, previously, entire groups of people were ignored or neglected by American literature.[26] (Jay, 1997) The general consensus view appears to be that American literature is not breaking apart because of new genres like African American literature. Instead, American literature is simply reflecting the increasing diversity of the United States and showing more signs of diversity than ever before in its history (Andrews, 1997; McKay, 2004). This view is supported by the fact that many African American authors—and writers representing other minority groups—consistently reach the tops of the best-seller lists. If their literature only appealed to their individual ethnic groups, this would not be possible.
[edit] African American criticismSome of the criticism of African American literature over the years has come from within the African American community; some argue that Black literature sometimes does not portray Black people in a positive light. This clash of aesthetics and racial politics has its beginnings in comments made by W.E.B DuBois in the NAACP publication The Crisis. For example, in 1921 he wrote, "We want everything that is said about us to tell of the best and highest and noblest in us. We insist that our Art and Propaganda be one." He added to this in 1926 by saying, "All Art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists."[27] DuBois and the editors of The Crisis consistently stated that literature was a tool in the struggle for African American political liberation. DuBois's belief in the propaganda value of art showed most clearly when he clashed in 1928 with African American author Claude McKay over McKay's best-selling novel Home to Harlem. To DuBois, the novel's frank depictions of sexuality and the nightlife in Harlem only appealed to the "prurient demand[s]" of white readers and publishers looking for portrayals of Black "licentiousness." DuBois also said, "Home to Harlem ... for the most part nauseates me, and after the dirtier parts of its filth I feel distinctly like taking a bath."[28] This criticism was repeated by others in the Black community when author Wallace Thurman published his novel The Blacker the Berry in 1929. This novel, which focused on intraracial prejudice between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned Blacks, infuriated many African Americans, who did not like such a public airing of their culture's "dirty laundry."[29] Naturally, many African American writers did not agree with the viewpoint that all Black literature should be propaganda, and instead stated that literature should present the truth about life and people. Langston Hughes articulated this view in his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926), when he said that Black artists intended to express themselves freely no matter what the Black public or white public thought. A more recent occurrence of this Black-on-Black criticism arose in charges by some critics that Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple unfairly attacked Black men.[30] In addition, African American author Charles R. Johnson, in the updated 1995 introduction to his novel Oxherding Tale, criticized Walker's novel for its negative portrayal of African-American males, adding "I leave it to readers to decide which book pushes harder at the boundaries of convention, and inhabits most confidently the space where fiction and philosophy meet." Walker later refuted these charges in her book The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult.
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