Discusses William Styron's novel "The Confessions of Nat Turner." Comments on the principal charges made against William Styron by the contributors to "William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond." (Author/AM)

Asserts that Wright's importance emerges out of his literary identification with a specific sociological vision of the life and destiny of black people in particular and human kind in general. Examines this vision interpretatively as a philosophy, as a historical trend in American culture, and as a personal and ideological commitment forming the…

Discusses and appraises the work of Nobel Prize winning black author Toni Morrison. Locates thematic and stylistic antecedents in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ernest Hemingway. Compares and contrasts Morrison's work with Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and discusses the critical reception of black authors. (MJP)

The background to this story by Wright is given, together with a discussion of the way Wright developed the themes of loneliness and anonymity in a materialistic, unfeeling society. (Author/AM)

A humorous depiction of a class discussion of "Up from Slavery"; part of the author's forthcoming book, "Miss LePage and the Classics." (Editor/RD)

Notes that Black women writers of the 70s were writing about a new woman with a consistently heroic and articulate voice, and suggests that critics, especially feminist critics, should take note. Provides examples of characters from the works of Black women writers. (MKM)

Analyzes the novel "Not Without Laughter" and suggests the image of the home to be a unifying theme. (AM)

This article reveals the differences between the character Kunta Kinte and the historical record concerning African males in the preslavery period. Kunta's non-African behaviors include displays of blind anger and rage, prudishness, and actions unknown in his Mandinka culture. These represent the many misrepresentations and ambiguities in Alex…

Analyzes "Mission to Kala", a novel in which the journey motif (physical and metaphorical) shapes the novelistic form. (Author/AM)

Considers the correlation between the role of community in the life of Toni Morrison and her work. Morrison grew up in the close-knit, multiracial, steel mill town of Lorain, Ohio. Her work often evokes a strong sense of place coupled with a need for communal belonging. (MJP)

"Dust Tracks on a Road," author Zora Neale Hurston's autobiography, is not a typical black autobiography. Hurston is a complex woman and author who addresses both black and white audiences, shifting the cadences of her voice to invoke a readership that can hear the textures of many voices and respond to an underlying call to a world…

Afro-American poets, dramatists, and prose writers have been affected by the tension between traditional African oral modes and various European-American written genres, as well as by the merger of "white taste and black need," which can be seen by examining the styles and themes of black literature in America from Lucy Terry's 1746 poem "Bar's…

Some of the fundamental problems with Shange's plays originate in the fact of the author's own youth. From the author's misapprehension of her own maturity derives the distorted perspective which controls the play. (Author/AM)

Discusses the novels and prose writings in English of South African authors. (DS)

Discusses Ellison's unique understanding and use of the blues and his relationship to a mainstream western philosophy, which he comes to through the blues; existentialism. (Author/AM)