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Arna Bontemps (1902–1973)

Autor(a) de American Negro Poetry

48+ Works 1,280 Membros 9 Críticas

About the Author

Arna Bontemps was one of many African American writers associated with Fisk University, where he taught for 20 years. He became a visiting professorship at Yale University and returned to Fisk to spend the last years of his life there. Bontemps grew up in the South and wrote of the condition and mostrar mais spirit of the southern black in memoirs and in fiction. His historical and topical novel Black Thunder (1936) is perhaps his best known, along with Drums at Dusk (1935). As an active leader in the Harlem Renaissance, however, Bontemps wrote prolifically in all genres and for children as well as adults. He produced several important collections of narratives about enslaved people and African American folk tales. Bontemps was a major anthologizer of Harlem Renaissance work and helped shape the new black writing as theoretician and critic. Bontemps died in 1973. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
Image credit: Arna Wendell Bontemps (1902-1973), photographed by Carl Van Vechten, Aug. 15, 1939 (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Van Vechten Collection, Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-6356)

Séries

Obras por Arna Bontemps

American Negro Poetry (1963) — Editor — 148 exemplares
The Story of George Washington Carver (1954) — Autor; Autor — 107 exemplares
The Book of Negro Folklore (1958) — Editor — 72 exemplares
Popo and Fifina (1932) 71 exemplares
Father of the Blues: An Autobiography (1941) — Editor — 66 exemplares
Great Slave Narratives (1969) 58 exemplares
Story of the Negro (1948) 47 exemplares
They Seek a City (1945) 46 exemplares
The Fast Sooner Hound (1942) 41 exemplares
100 Years of Negro Freedom (1961) 30 exemplares
The Poetry of the Negro: 1746-1949 (1949) — Editor — 25 exemplares
Five Black Lives (1971) 23 exemplares
The Pasteboard Bandit (1997) 21 exemplares
Lonesome Boy (1955) 21 exemplares
God Sends Sunday: A Novel (1931) 17 exemplares
Boy of the Border (2009) 16 exemplares
Famous Negro Athletes (1964) 12 exemplares
Sad-Faced Boy (1937) 12 exemplares
Drums at Dusk (2009) 10 exemplares
Bubber Goes to Heaven (1998) 10 exemplares
Negro American Heritage (1966) — Editor — 7 exemplares
We Have Tomorrow (1945) 6 exemplares
Personals (1973) 4 exemplares
Mr. Kelso's Lion (1970) 3 exemplares
Great Slave Narratives (1969) 2 exemplares
Black Theatre — Editor — 1 exemplar

Associated Works

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) — Introdução, algumas edições1,463 exemplares
Cane (1923) — Introdução, algumas edições1,400 exemplares
Cane [Norton Critical Edition] (1988) — Contribuidor — 482 exemplares
The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (1925) — Contribuidor — 433 exemplares
The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (1994) — Contribuidor — 404 exemplares
The Black Poets (1983) — Contribuidor — 353 exemplares
African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song (2020) — Contribuidor — 169 exemplares
The Signet Classic Book of Southern Short Stories (1991) — Contribuidor — 121 exemplares
Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009) — Contribuidor — 113 exemplares
Voices from the Harlem Renaissance (1976) — Contribuidor — 106 exemplares
Harlem Renaissance: Four Novels of the 1930s (2011) — Contribuidor — 100 exemplares
American Negro Short Stories (1966) — Contribuidor — 61 exemplares
Animal Friends and Adventures (1949) — Contribuidor — 55 exemplares
Harlem Renaissance Novels: The Library of America Collection (2011) — Contribuidor — 48 exemplares
Told Under the Stars and Stripes (1945) — Contribuidor — 38 exemplares
Don't You Turn Back (1969) — Introdução, algumas edições20 exemplares
Anger, and beyond: the Negro writer in the United States (1966) — Contribuidor, algumas edições20 exemplares
Spring World, Awake: Stories, Poems, and Essays (1970) — Contribuidor — 9 exemplares
The Ethnic Image in Modern American Literature, 1900-1950 (1984) — Contribuidor — 1 exemplar

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Membros

Críticas

I really enjoyed this book because it gives a glimpse into the life of a boy growing up in the Borderlands several generations ago. I think this book can be good for students because it's speaking to the local culture and lands and helps connect the past to the present. It's also a story about various exciting adventures that I think students would find interesting, including horseback riding, travels across far distances, etc. 4th-6th.
 
Assinalado
sbutler9 | Sep 11, 2014 |
This book gets 5 stars for its priceless historical value alone but there is in fact even much more to it. Nothing else in American/African-American history and literature comes even close to this volume because to date it represents the only comprehensive collected correspondence between two giants of African-American literature. That by itself is notable but possibly even more so is the span of time, as indicated in the title, covered. Bontemps and Hughes were both stars of the Harlem Renaissance but these collected letters only begin there and take readers through the writers' first-hand experiences of, and reports on, the Great Depression, life during World War II, and the thunderous rumblings of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

They also contain the kind of shared literary intimacies and insights you hope to find in such books. For example, Hughes writes the following to Bontemps on Feb 18, 1953: "If you'll tell me what Dick Wright's book is like (since I haven't it) I'll tell you about James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain which I've just finished: If it were written by Zora Hurston with her feeling for the folk idiom, it would probably be a quite wonderful book. Baldwin over-writes and over-poeticizes in images way over the heads of the folks supposedly thinking them--although it might be as the people would think if they could think that way..."

Whether or not you agree with Hughes' or Bontemps' assessments in such instances, the thrill comes from getting their uncensored straight-from-the-gut responses. This is the case whether they are dealing with literature, politics, race relations, mutual acquaintances, the development of various cultural movements, or their everyday struggles to survive and thrive as literary artists. Their voices as presented through these letters are beautifully undiluted but powerfully informed, and therefore an invaluable treasure for anyone who appreciates the idea of literary camaraderie, loves the Harlem Renaissance, or simply enjoys checking out writers at their unscripted best.

by Aberjhani
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
Aberjhani | 1 outra crítica | Feb 1, 2013 |
An adequate look at the 100 years after the American Civil War. Written in 1961 this work is a little dated. Bontemps was somewhat dismissive of MLK but laudatory of Ralph Bunche. The last 50 years have reversed that.

He spent a great deal of time on the DuBois-Washington controversy. He gets beyond the surface of the controversy between the two. He also notes how the views of each changed over the years, especially noting BTW's realization that segregation was unacceptable near the end of his life. Bontemps had previously criticized BTW for giving the SCOTUS the notion about separate-but-equal doctrine that found expression in the 1896 Plessy decision. BTW had ostensibly endorse separate-but-equal the previous year with his so-call Atlanta Compromise.

Bontemps also explored (much more briefly) the Harlem Renaissance (of which he was a part). It would have been nice to see a more lengthy examination of the renaissance. Also missing from the discussion on the 1920s was a discussion (or even mention) of Marcus Garvey. Granted, Garvey was not an American, but he was a profound figure.

Bontemps seems somewhat contemptuous MLK and Thurgood Marshall. Written on the eve of the explosion of the civil rights movement (after Brown, Montgomery, and Little Rock, but before sit-ins, freedom rides, the March on Washington, and freedom summer), the modern reader gains an insight into the thinking of African Americans in the early 1960s.

While Bontemps is a good writer, he is not (nor did he claim to be) a historian, he had no footnotes. The extensive use of quotes would have been enhanced with sourcing. The bibliography is nice, but a bit dated.
… (mais)
1 vote
Assinalado
w_bishop | May 22, 2012 |
The life, history and evolution of the Negro.
 
Assinalado
austinwood | Sep 19, 2009 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
48
Also by
23
Membros
1,280
Popularidade
#20,032
Avaliação
3.9
Críticas
9
ISBN
69
Línguas
1

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