Daniel Webster College :: Library :: African-American Writers

Pathfinder: African-American Writers

Scope|Overview Sources|Circulating Books|Periodicals, Journals & Trade Publications|Videos

*Also see the library's pathfinder on the Harlem Renaissance.

SCOPE: Prior to the Harlem Renaissance, white society controlled most of the publishing world, but the period from World War I through the 1930s brought forth a wealth of literature from a group of writers from Harlem that celebrated black culture. Today black writers are among some of the more respected and gifted writers of our age. The purpose of this pathfinder is to serve as a guideline for student research in locating sources that focus on the topic of Afro-American writers and provide an in-depth analysis of this topic.

There are sources located in the Reference Section of the Baddour Library that give a general overview or summary of the topic you are researching. The following is a list of some of the sources available in the library.

OVERVIEW SOURCES

REF PS 21.D5 V.33 Afro-American Fiction Writers After 1955
REF PS 21.D5 V.41 Afro-Afro-American Poets Since 1955
REF PS 21.D5 V.50 Afro-American Writers Before the Harlem Renaissance to 1940
REF PS 21.D5 V. 125 Twentieth-Century Caribbean and Black African Writers

Some representative books from the Circulating Collection that are located upstairs in the library are:

CIRCULATING BOOKS

Baker, Houston A. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Boime, Albert. The Art of Exclusion: Representing Blacks in the Nineteenth Century. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990.

DuBois, W.E.B. The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History. New York: International Publishers, 1965.

Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995.

Hutchinson, George. The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1995.

Lewis, David L. W.E.B. DuBois--Biography of a Race, 1868-1919. New York: H. Holt, 1993.

Nielsen, Aldon Lynn. Black Chant: Languages of African-American Postmodernism. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997.

Obradovic, Nadezda. African Rhapsody: Short Stories of the Contemporary African Experience. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.

Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993.

LITERATURE

Chinua Achebe

African Short Stories. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1985.

Anthills of the Savannah. N.Y: Anchor Press, 1988.

Arrow of God. N.Y: Anchor Books, 1989.

Girls at War, and Other Stories. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987.

Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. New York: Doubleday, 1990.

A Man of the People. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1967.

Things Fall Apart. Greenwich, Ct: Fawcett Publications, 1969.

Maya Angelou

All Gods Children Need Traveling Shoes. New York: Random House, 1986.

The Heart of a Woman. N.Y: Bantam Books, 1982.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. N.Y: Random House, 1970.

Gather Together in My Name. N.Y: Random House, 1974.

Now Sheba Sings the Song. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1987.

Poems. New York: Bantam, 1986.

A Song Flung up to Heaven. New York: Random House, 2002.

Wouldnt Take Nothing for My Journey Now. New York: Random House,
1993.

James Baldwin

Another Country. N.Y: Laurel, 1988.

Blues for Mister Charlie. N.Y: Dell, 1964.

Collected Essays. New York: Library of America, 1998.

Early Novels and Stories. New York: Library of America, 1998.

The Evidence of Things not Seen. New York: Henry Holt, 1986.

The Fire Next Time. New York: Vintage International Vintage Books,
1993.

Giovannis Room. N.Y: Dell, 1956.

Go Tell It on the Mountain. N.Y: Dell, 1985.

Going to Meet the Man. New York: Dell, 1976.

Jimmys Blues: Selected Poems. New York: St. Martins Press, 1985.

Nobody Knows My Name; More Notes of a Native Son. New York: The
Dial Press, 1961.

The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985. New York: St.
Martins/Marek, 1985.

Tell Me How Long the Trains Been Gone. New York: Dell, 1968.

Toni Cade Bambara

The Sea Birds are Still Alive: Collected Stories. N.Y: Random House, 1977.

Arna Bontemps [also see the library's pathfinder on the Harlem Renaissance]

The Harlem Renaissance Remembered: Essays. N.Y: Dodd, Mead, 1984.

Black Thunder. Boston: Beacon Press, 1968.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Aloneness. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1971.

Beckonings: Poems. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1975.

Selected Poems. N.Y: Harper & Row, 1963.

Ed Bullins

Five Plays: Goina Buffalo; In the Wine Time; A Son, Come Home; The
Electronic Nigger; Claras Ole Man. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.

Aime Cesaire

Lost Body. N.Y: G. Braziller, 1986.

The Collected Poetry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Countee Cullen [also see the library's pathfinder on the Harlem Renaissance]

My Souls High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Culleen, Voice Of the Harlem Renaissance. N.Y: Doubleday, 1991.

W.E.B. DuBois

Selections. N.Y: Viking Press, 1986.

Langston Hughes [also see the library's pathfinder on the Harlem Renaissance]

Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. N.Y.: Knopf, 1988.

Zora Neale Hurston [also see the library's pathfinder on the Harlem Renaissance]

Novels and Stories. N.Y: Library of America, 1995.

The Complete Stories. N.Y: Harper Collins, 1995.

Claude McKay [also see the library pathfinder on the Harlem Renaissance]

Selected Poems of Claude McKay. N.Y: Harcourt, Brace & World,
1953.

Toni Morrison

Beloved: A Novel. N.Y: Knopf, 1987.

The Bluest Eye. N.Y: Knopf, 2000.

Sula. N.Y: Penguin, 1982.

Jean Toomer [also see the library's pathfinder's on the Harlem Renaissance]

Cane. N.Y: Liveright, 1975.

Alice Walker

The Color Purple. N.Y: Pocket Books, 1983.

Walker, Alice. Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems, 1965-1990. San Diego, Calif: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.

Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose. San Diego,Calif:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.

Walker, Alice. The Temple of my Familiar. San Diego,CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1989.

Richard Wright

Native Son. N.Y: Harper & Row, 1940.

Wright, Richard. Black Boy; A Record of Childhood and Youth. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Wright, Richard. The Outsider. N.Y: Harper & Row, 1965.

Wright, Richard. White Man, Listen! Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1978.

PERIODICALS, JOURNALS, & TRADE PUBLICATIONS

Click the link for a list of full text journals available through our databases in:

African Languages and Literature

VIDEOS

Harlem Renaissance: The Black Poets PS591.N4 H37 1971

Updated 02/08/2007