The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Twentieth-Century Classics) - Softcover

Johnson, James; Andrews, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140184023 ISBN 13: 9780140184020

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1990

Synopsis

Originally published in 1912, this novel was one of the first to present a frank picture of being black in America Masked in the tradition of the literary confession practiced by such writers as St. Augustine and Rousseau, this "autobiography" purports to be a candid account of its narrator's private views and feelings as well as an acknowledgement of the central secret of his life: that though he lives as a white man, he is, by heritage and experience, an African-American. Written by the first black executive secretary of the NAACP, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, in its depiction of turn-of-the-century New York, anticipates the social realism of the Harlem Renaissance writers. In its unprecedented analysis of the social causes of a black man's denial of the best within himself, it is perhaps James Weldon Johnson's greatest service to his race. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

About the Author

James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1871. Among the first to break through the barriers segregating his race, he was educated at Atlanta University and at Columbia and was the first black admitted to the Florida bar. He was also, for a time, a songwriter in New York, American consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua, executive secretary of the NAACP, and professor of creative literature at Fisk University--experiences recorded in his autobiography, Along This Way. Other books by him include Saint Peter Relates an Incident, Black Manhattan, and God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. In addition to his own writing, Johnson was the editor of pioneering anthologies of black American poetry and spirituals. He died in 1938. William L. Andrews is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of To Tell a Free Story and editor or coeditor of more than thirty books on African American literature.

From the Back Cover

This book is an emotionally gripping novel of a landmark in black literary history and, more than eighty years after its original anonymous publication, a classic of American fiction. It's influenced a generation of writers during the Harlem Renaissance and served as eloquent inspiration for Zora Neale. In the 1920s and since, it has also given white readers a startling new perspective on their own culture, revealing to many the double standard of racial identity imposed on black Americans.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0140184023
• ISBN 13: 9780140184020
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192