DLB 38: Afro-American Writers after 1955: Dramatists & Prose Writers

by Thadious M. Davis (Editor)

Since the mid-1950s, drama has emerged as a major genre for African-Americans writers. The flood of creative outpourings in the 1960s that led to the black arts movement brought in its wake a new generation of dramatists who provided some of the most influential voices in American literature. The early 1960s introduced new dramatic forms to larger audiences. Ossie Davis Purlie Victorious and Adrienne Kennedys Funnyhouse of a Negro are examples of productions that carried messages of a reality rarely seen outside African-American communities. Just as African-American dramatists were interested in creating a theater in their own image, prose writers were interested in literary creations relevant to African-Americans. During this time, autobiography and biography became increasingly important as modes for expressing this history. 35 entries Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Alice Childress, Ossie Davis, Alex Haley, Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy, Ron Milner, Larry Neal and Samm-Art Williams.

376 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1984

About the author

Her poetry has been published in various journals and anthologies in the USA, including Obsidian, Pushcart Prize IV: Best of the Small Presses (ed. Bill Henderson, 1979) and Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980 (ed. Erlene Stetson, 1981) and is collected in Emergence. In the 1980s she co-edited (with Trudier Harris) several volumes of the Dictionary of Literary Biography dealing with African-American writers.

(from Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby)