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Interpreters: Enriched edition. Exploring Race, Identity, and Society in the Harlem Renaissance

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Step behind the curtain and into the world of seven legendary performers with Carl Van Vechten's 'Interpreters'. This captivating collection of impressions and interviews delves into the lives and careers of some of the most renowned stage artists of their time. From the ballet dancer Waslav Nijinsky to the opera singer Geraldine Farrar, Van Vechten's keen insights and engaging prose offer a unique glimpse into their personalities, talents, and struggles.

77 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1920

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About the author

Carl van Vechten

142 books29 followers
Carl van Vechten (B.A., University of Chicago, 1903) was a photographer, music-dance critic, novelist, and patron of the Harlem Renaissance who served as literary executor for Gertrude Stein.

Van Vechten was among the most influential literary figures of the 1910s and 1920s. He began his career in journalism as a reporter, then in 1906 joined The New York Times as assistant music critic and later worked as its Paris correspondent. His early reviews are collected in Interpreters and Interpretations (1917 and 1920) and Excavations: A Book of Advocacies (1926). His first novel, Peter Whiffle (1922), a first-person account of the salon and bohemian culture of New York and Paris and clearly drawn from Van Vechten's own experiences, and was immensely popular. His most controversial work of fiction is Nigger Heaven (1926), notable for its depiction of black life in Harlem in the 1920s and its sympathetic treatment of the newly emerging black culture.

In the 1930s, Van Vechten turned from fiction to photography. His photographs are in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere. An important literary patron, he established the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale.

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