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Leon Forrest

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Leon Forrest


Born
in Chicago, The United States
January 08, 1937

Died
November 06, 1997


Leon Richard Forrest was an African-American novelist. His novels concerned mythology, history, and Chicago.

His first novel, There is a Tree More Ancient than Eden, was published in 1973, and included an introduction from Ralph Ellison. Nobel Prize Laureate Toni Morrison served as publisher's editor for There is a Tree More Ancient than Eden, and his next two novels The Bloodworth Orphans, and Two Wings to Veil My Face. These three novels were known as the Forest County Trilogy. He cited Charlie Parker, Dylan Thomas, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, Ralph Ellison, and his parents' religions as inspiration. ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 4.19 · 243 ratings · 69 reviews · 8 distinct works • Similar authors
There Is a Tree More Ancien...
4.22 avg rating — 90 ratings — published 1973 — 7 editions
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Divine Days
4.32 avg rating — 78 ratings — published 1992 — 10 editions
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Two Wings to Veil My Face
3.93 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 1984 — 4 editions
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The Bloodworth Orphans
4.21 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1987 — 3 editions
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Meteor in the Madhouse
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3.90 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2001 — 2 editions
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Relocations of the Spirit: ...
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1994 — 5 editions
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Conversations with Leon For...
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3.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2007 — 2 editions
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The key to unlocking your m...
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More books by Leon Forrest…

Series by Leon Forrest

There Is a Tree More Ancien... Two Wings to Veil My Face The Bloodworth Orphans Divine Days
(4 books)
by
4.22 avg rating — 222 ratings

Quotes by Leon Forrest  (?)
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“My method of writing is to take the most basic kind of line and improvise on it. After all, I am the child of the culture which created Jazz.”
― Leon Forrest
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“I want to look at the work. I don’t care if its white or black. I don’t agree that “If you’re white, you can’t write”. I want to see what they can do. I also don’t believe that because I am a man, I can’t write about women. I had better quit writing, if I can’t write about women. Why can’t women write about men? It’s talent that’s important.”
― Leon Forrest, Conversations with Leon Forrest
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“It is only through the possession of an ever-illuminating library that we can come to recognize and understand the horror and wonder of the human family's Odyssey and its quest for wholeness, freedom, salvation, love, and dominion over fire, flood, suffering, and every disease and death—from the river Styx to space. Without reading as an essential resource for survival in our everyday experience, the individual . . . swings in the orchard of time, an empty-headed scarecrow—gleeful in his wilderness.”
― Leon Forrest, Relocations of the Spirit: Collected Essays
tags: books, reading, the-human-condition
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