Samuel R. Delany is one of the most successful of the so-called New Wave writers, publishing stories remarkable for their introduction of formal innovations such as decreased emphasis on narrative structure, heavy reliance on mythic patterns, and stylist...

Few black writers have employed popular forms--the mystery novel, the historical or gothic romance, or science fiction. Harlem Renaissance writer Rudolph Fisher has been credited with the first mystery novel by a black writer. Frank Yerby adopted the his...

"Samuel R. Delany," comments Jane Branham Weedman in her study of the author, "is one of today's most innovative and imaginative writers of science fiction." School Library Journal critic John Adams adds, "Delany's not for everyone.... But his writing of...

Samuel R. Delany. Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1996. 801 pp. Paper: $17.95. Nothing would be easier than to declare Delany's 1975 magnum opus a literary masterpiece that far excels the limitations of the science fiction genre. Nothing would be easier, but then nothing...

As Americans struggled to grasp what was unfolding in New Orleans, the word unimaginable frequently recurred--even though the catastrophe had been imagined many times. Thirty years ago, the novelist Samuel R. Delany wrote, in rich detail, about the unfolding of racially charged violence,...