Infants Of The Spring (New England Library of Black Literature) - Softcover

Thurman, Wallace

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555531288 ISBN 13: 9781555531287

Publisher: Northeastern University Press, 1992

Synopsis

This roman clef centers on Niggeratti Manor, fashioned after the Harlem rooming house in which Wallace Thurman once lived with other black artists and writers. Thurman's second novel is one of the most potent satires of the Harlem Renaissance and a retort to the idealized vision of Harlem's artistic community between World War I and the Depression.

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: Northeastern University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555531288
• ISBN 13: 9781555531287
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284