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African literature.
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In the following essay, Hamer and Hamer trace the development of African American women's short fiction from the nineteenth century to the present.
We are the subjects of our own narrative, wit...
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In the following introduction, excerpted from a short story anthology by writers of African descent, Rowell reflects on the difficulty in choosing a title for this collection, noting that finding comm...
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In the following essay, Muraskin asserts that the short stories published in The Crisis from 1910-1950 reflected the concerns of the black middle class in America during those years.
“The educa...
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In the following essay, Price examines the attitude of The Atlantic Monthly to African Americans in the nineteenth century and traces the periodical's relationship with the prominent African Am...
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In the following essay, Mullen points to the prevalence of racial stereotypes in short fiction during the 1930s and 1940s, and then traces the transformation of the genre by such authors as Chester Hi...
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In the following essay, Waniek explores the themes of alienation and duality as reflected in Paule Marshall's short fiction.
As a first-generation West Indian-American and the author of three n...
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In the following essay, Solard provides an analysis of “Blood Burning Moon,” citing the story as an example of Toomer's point of view regarding race relations and spirituality.
Je...
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In the following essay, Roy offers a brief evaluation of the black experience as reflected in Henry Dumas's Ark of Bones and Other Stories.
Reading Ark of Bones and Other Stories by Henry Dumas...
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In the following essay, Fienberg views Charles Chestnutt's short story “The Wife of His Youth” as a reflection of the author's own efforts to define himself as a black auth...
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In the following essay, Baum reflects on the politico-feminist aspects of Zora Neale Hurston's work, drawing parallels with other black female writers such as Nella Larson, Alice Walker, and To...
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In the following essay, Holladay explores the depiction of racial, socioeconomic, and sexual prejudice in a small community in Ann Petry's “Miss Muriel.”
In Miss Muriel and Other ...
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In the following essay, Cowart explains how Alice Walker uses her main characters in “Everyday Use” to outline her own vision of the African American community in the past and present, a...
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In the following essay, Musser appraises Marita Bonner's short fiction as a unique collection of work that reflects the struggle of African American women attempting to answer the Harlem Renais...
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In the following essay, Birns contends that Octavia Butler “employs her African American and science fiction heritages to see anew the way things are.”
In her essay “Furor Scriben...
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In the following essay, Sanders maintains that the main thematic concerns of M. Nourbese Philip's “Stop Frame” are “memory and history and, in part, the relation of what ha...
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In the following essay, Sturgess considers Dionne Brand's particular status as “a Trinidadian Canadian black lesbian feminist” through a theoretically informed analysis of stories...
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In the following essay, Welsh cogitates Pauline Melville's particular status as a Guyanese of mixed-race ancestry through a theoretically informed examination of her collection of stories, Shap...
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In the following essay, N'Zengou-Tayo investigates how Edwidge Danticat utilizes traditional Haitian stories and beliefs in her work.
In the last pages of Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat...
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In the following essay, Thompson-Deloatch regards Olive Senior's Summer Lightning as a combination of Eurocentric and African styles and thematic concerns, focusing on her treatment of time and...
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In the following essay, Braziel asserts that Jamaica Kincaid's utilization of Obeah, a Caribbean diasporic religion, in “In the Night” “is linked to contemporary Caribbean ...
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In the following essay, Dodgson examines the history and diversity of modern African literature, focusing on the movement's major writers, significant works, and critical response.
Folktale and...
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Critical Essay by Judith A. Hamer and Martin J. Hamer
