Abstract

Introduction

Literary genre that includes short stories and novels, in which African Americans have played a significant role, particularly in the twentieth century.

While modern African American fiction has been characterized by a variety of styles and themes, it centers primarily on the question of identity. Throughout the twentieth century, literature has offered an artistic response to social changes as blacks have attempted to reconcile their unique past with American mainstream culture.

Works of fiction by such African American authors as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison embody the struggle of blacks for self-knowledge and social identity—both as Africans and as Americans. Many works of African American fiction combine folk traditions, black speech and dialect, and modernist literary techniques. Combined, these have produced a distinct body of literature that reflects the increasingly diverse social contexts in which African Americans have found themselves throughout the constantly changing twentieth century.

Thesis Statement

The sense of community established by the African American writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Emily Tsao, Gloria Naylor, Richard Rodriguez and Stephen Jay Gould was passed down throughout the century, as writers mentored and inspired succeeding generations of aspiring artists.

Discussion

The results of Hurston's fieldwork in ethnology in the South formed the basis for her book, Mules and Men (1935), in which she writes in the unedited black dialect of Eatonville. The title of the book describes Hurston's vision of the way black women were treated in black society—as a mule, a beast of burden. Hurston would go on to carry out similar noteworthy anthropology fieldwork in Jamaica, Haiti, Bermuda, and Honduras. Her book, Tell My Horse (95-105), chronicles Hurston's cultural investigation of Haitian voodoo.

All the while, Hurston was also writing creatively and associating with the various intellectuals whose names figure prominently in the Harlem Renaissance. Her 1937 book Their Eyes Were Watching God, a controversial work because it did not fit easily into traditional stereotypes of black stories, is generally acknowledged to be her finest work of fiction. Equally acclaimed, yet controversial, is the quasi-memoir Dust Tracks on a Road (123-130). Some observers in the black community criticized Hurston for taking money from whites to support her writing, while many whites failed to appreciate her work because the themes were “too black.”

Hurston married twice but was divorced both times because she refused to assume a traditional role of housewife. Despite her superior intellect, talent as a writer, and sound education (or perhaps because of all these), Hurston's professional life also was inconsistent and unstable, defined by constant moves and career shifts. Within her lifetime, apart from her undertakings as a writer and anthropologist, Hurston held the positions of librarian, Hollywood screenwriter, high school teacher, drama professor, and finally, in her last poverty-stricken years, as a maid.

Gloria Naylor won a National Book Award for best first novel in 1983 for The Women of Brewster Place, which tells the story of a group of African American women who live in the inner city. In 1990, Charles Johnson received the prize for fiction ...