Cane: A Novel

by Jean Toomer

'Cane' explores spiritual and emotional frustration, failure of basic communication between individuals, and repression of natural energies. It reveals the chaos of contemporary black American life and calls for a spiritual awakening. A land mark novel that changed the way America looked at black writers.

I love it passionately; could not possibly exist without it. — Alice Walker

This book should be on all readers' and writers' desks and in their minds. — Maya Angelou

[Toomer avoided] the pitfalls of propaganda and moralizing on the one hand and the snares of a false and hollow race pride on the other hand. — Montgomery Gregory

159 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 4, 2019

About the author

Jean Toomer (December 26, 1894 – March 30, 1967) was an American poet and novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance and modernism. His first book Cane, published in 1923, is considered by many to be his most significant. Of mixed race and majority European ancestry, Toomer struggled to identify as "an American" and resisted efforts to classify him as a black writer.

He continued to write poetry, short stories and essays. After his second marriage in 1934, he moved from New York to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where he became a member of the Religious Society of Friends (also known as Quakers) and retired from public life. His papers are held by the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University.

(from Wikipedia)