Review by Choice Review
The wealth of poetry, short fiction, novel excerpts, memoirs, and travel and political essays anthologized in this volume provides an excellent introduction to African American literature, culture, history, and consciousness. Mining both familiar and never-before-published works by 59 writers--"some quite sophisticated, others rough-hewn"--Roses and Randolph's compilation reads richly. It includes Lucy Mae Turner's "The Family of Nat Turner," Octavia B. Wynbush's "The Noose," poems by Esther Popel and Ariel Williams Holloway, and a selection from Eslanda Goode Robeson's African Journey alongside lesser-known works by more recognized writers such as Jessie Fauset, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell. A selection of extraordinary photographs accompanies biographical notes on each author (doubtless drawn, though not credited, from Roses and Randolph's bibliography of black women writers, Harlem Renaissance and Beyond, CH, May'90). This volume stands as an alternate text for exploring how biography and history intersect with culture and writing. An exemplary, accessible research model for recovering and recontextualizing noncanonical texts, Harlem's Glory will become a standard source for those thinking about women's writing, scholarly methodology, and classroom teaching. All academic collections. S. Bryant Alfred University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Containing short stories, poems, memoirs, plays, and essays, this anthology fills the huge void in early-twentieth-century literature left by African American women writers. The editors have done an excellent job choosing pieces for this collection, reflecting the confusion, anger, and longing for racial equality and the inherent qualities of the authors themselves. Although this collection includes pieces by such well-known writers as Zora Neale Hurston and Georgia Douglas Johnston, it also includes the work of many lesser-known and even unpublished writers, in total revealing a deep, rich body of work that has hitherto gone unnoticed. Each piece or work is surprising, whether it be amusing, sad, or simply enjoyable, all of them evoking another time and era effortlessly and providing a valuable historical record of the thoughts and feelings of an entire generation of African American women. --Kathleen Hughes
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This book is a treasure. It is an incredibly rich amalgam of prose, poetry, non-fiction and fiction that readers will adore, with unifying commentary, footnotes and illustrated biographies that scholars will respect. It includes rare things, unpublished manuscripts, the words of self-educated women and the collective memory of their men and children. The authors (who also collaborated on Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900-1945) opted not to evaluate the pieces for "quality," but instead chose those that struck them as "vivid and memorable," and as contributing to the project overall. The result is a collection of great diversity that still speaks fully to the African American experience of racial hypocrisy and unity, of solidarity between black women and white, of the intellectual lives of those who've had a book in hand but no bread on the table. Every reader will have several favorites. Zora Neale Hurston and Dorothy West are here, but so are Nat Turner's granddaughter and a woman who worked her way around the world as a domestic. Roses, director of Latin American studies at Wellesley, and Randolph, an independent scholar, have also provided a context in which the work of all black writers of the period, but especially women, can be viewed as part of a rich tradition rather than a short-lived fluke of history in a crowded corner of one northern city. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Roses and Randolph (Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900-1945, LJ 12/89) have done a great service in compiling this excellent anthology of African American women's poetry, short stories, drama, memoirs, and essays dating from 1900 to 1950. The collection is divided into nine sections, each prefaced by a brief but useful headnote. Topics range from racial mixing and activism to travel and views of Harlem. Fifty-nine writers are represented, including better-known figures such as Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Fauset, and Georgia Douglas Johnson as well as many lesser-known but significant authors like Esther Popel, Anita Scott Coleman, and Nellie R. Bright. While much of the material has been culled from periodicals and small-press editions, several manuscript pieces are included (e.g., Hurston's "Black Death," Regina M. Andrews's "The Man Who Passed," and Angelina Weld Grimke's "The Handicapped"). There are gems to be found here by any reader.Louis J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn Campus (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
