As a household name for so many readers of varying persuasions, Langston Hughes was perhaps the most significant black American writer in the twentieth century. From the Harlem Renaissance of the early twenties, to the Black Arts reorientations of the...

Possibly the most influential black American writer of the twentieth century, Langston Hughes set an example of self-determination and artistic integrity. Beginning in the Harlem Renaissance during the early 1920s, his career extended to the Black Arts...

Few writers become household names, yet such is the case of Langston Hughes , who was perhaps the most significant black American writer in the twentieth century. His poems, novels, short stories, dramas, translations, and anthologies of the works of...

Poet, fiction writer, playwright, journalist, biographer, historian, anthologist, translator, and critic, Langston Hughes was one of the best known and most versatile black American writers of the twentieth century. While a poet first and foremost,...

Langston Hughes's reputation as one of the most innovative American poets may be one reason he has largely been ignored as a significant playwright. He did not primarily identify himself as a playwright, writing in a variety of literary genres. Other...

"I didn't know the upper class Negroes well enough to write much about them," Langston Hughes said in The Big Sea. "I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren't people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had...

One of the most eminent black American writers and a literary figure of international renown, Langston Hughes was a serious and innovative artist who helped bring into the mainstream of American literature the experiences, culture, and language of the...

France held a special value for Langston Hughes even before he first visited Paris. "I will never forget the thrill of first understanding the French of de Maupassant," he writes in The Big Sea (1940). "I think it was de Maupassant who made me really...

American author Langston Hughes (1902-1967), a moving spirit in the artistic ferment of the 1920s often called the Harlem Renaissance, expressed the mind and spirit of most African Americans for nearly half a century. Langston Hughes was born in...