Infants of the Spring (Modern Library) - Softcover

Thurman, Wallace

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375752323 ISBN 13: 9780375752322

Publisher: Random House Inc, 1999

Synopsis

Harlem in the 1920s is a hopping scene when Stephen Jorgenson arrives from Canada and is taken uptown, where he embraces his new environment but is balanced by the artist Paul, who is cynical about himself and his people. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Wallace Thurman, author of The Blacker the Berry and the hit Broadway play Harlem, was a dark-skinned bisexual alcoholic who never thought he was accepted by his peers. Raised in Salt Lake City, he died destitute in New York in 1934. Infants of the Spring was his last laugh. E. Lynn Harris is the bestselling author of Invisible Life, And This Too Shall Pass, and If This World Were Mine.

The fertile artistic period now known as the Harlem Renaissance (1920-1930) gave birth to many of the world-renowned masters of black literature and is the model for today's renaissance of black writers.

From the Inside Flap

Library Harlem Renaissance

It's 1920s Harlem, and man, the joint is jumpin'. Folks are coming and going and everything's copacetic as long as the gin keeps flowing. This is the scene Stephen Jorgenson dives into when he arrives from Canada for the first time. He is taken to "The Niggerati Manor," an apartment building in Harlem inhabited by aspiring artists whose true talents lie in living, and where everything's black and white--with a lot of grayness in between. Counterbalancing Stephen's embrace of these folks is Raymond Taylor, a writer who is the only truly talented artist in the manor. Raymond's cynical take on the "new Negro artist" is the tightrope he walks between the love and hatred of himself and his people. Characters representing Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alain Locke all appear, and part of the fun of this book is figuring out who's who.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375752323
• ISBN 13: 9780375752322
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304