In many respects Ann Petry is a study in contrast. She came from a tiny town in New England to Harlem in 1938. She spent some years in Harlem learning of its people and transmitting their yearnings, feelings, and fears to the printed page. Her...

She stood there thinking that it was really a pity they couldn't somehow manage to rent the halls, too. Single beds. No. Old army cots would do. It would bring in so much more money. If she were a landlord, she'd rent out...

Hired by Columbia Pictures in 1957, Ann Petry wrote a script called "That Hill Girl" for a movie featuring Hollywood glamour girl Kim Novak. The job must have been a dream come true for Petry. In an autobiographical essay for Contemporary Authors, she...

In this chapter from his full-length, deconstructive study of the concept of “value” as it applies to racial blackness, Barrett explores the symbolic value of Lutie's singing voice in The Street, as it responds to the values of the dominant white culture.

In the following essay, Wurst shows that Lutie, the protagonist of The Street, is doomed to failure when she tries to model herself on Benjamin Franklin, a white male with very different cultural values and expectations.

In the following essay, Brody dwells on the image of the black female in “The Winding Sheet,” applying black feminist theory to concepts of race and gender.