Born December 26, 1894

Washington, D.C.

Died March 30, 1967

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

American poet, short story writer, dramatist, and essayist

Jean Toomer. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Jean Toomer was hailed as the country's leading "Negro writer," but instead of being proud he was dismayed. He did not wish to be viewed through the lens of race. He considered himself simply an American writer who had written about the black experience in America.

With the publication of his novel Cane (1923), which was immediately hailed as a masterpiece of American literature and perhaps the highest achievement that any African American writer had yet attained, Jean Toomer moved to the forefront of all the promising young poets, novelists, and other artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Toomer soon turned his back on his newfound fame, however, to continue his lifelong search for inner peace, a more spiritual existence, and an identity...