George S Schuyler

Broschiertes Buch

Black No More

Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940

Beschreibung

2015 Reprint of 1931 Printing. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. This celebrated Picaresque novel is a 1931 Harlem Renaissance era satire on American race relations. Schuyler targets both the KKK and NAACP in condemning the ways in which race functions as both an obsession and a commodity in early twentieth-century America. The central premise of the novel is that an African American scientist invents a process that can transform blacks into whites. Those who have internalized white racism, those who are tired of inferior opportunities socially and economically, and those who simply want to expand their sexual horizons, line up to be transformed. As the country "whitens", the economic importance of racial segregation in the South as a means of maintaining elite white economic and social status becomes increasingly apparent. The novel is known not only for its satiric bite and inventive plot machinations, but also for the caricatures of prominent figures of the American 1920s including W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, C. J. Walker and others.

Autor

George S. Schuyler (1895 - 1977) was an author, journalist, social commentator and somewhat controversial figure. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Schuyler's formative years were shaped by his time in the U.S. military. Enlisting at age 17, Schuyler rose to the title of First Lieutenant before going AWOL due to a racist encounter with a Greek immigrant. Sentenced to five years for the abandonment, Schulyer was released after less than a year for being a model prisoner. In the aftermath of his release, he lived at the Phillis Wheatley Hotel in New York City, coming to learn the teachings of Black nationalist, Marcus Garvey. Not fully convinced of Garvey's teachings, Schuyler would separate himself from both Garveyism and socialism, contributing articles to the American Mercury and embracing capitalism. Embarking on a career in journalism, Schuyler would find success and acknowledgement for his editorial skills as he took on the role of Chief Editorial Writer at the Courier in 1926. That same year he would pen a controversial piece, "The Negro-Art Hokum" for The Nation which-combined with his advocacy for capitalism-further alienated himself from his contemporaries. The article, which argued that art should not be segregated by race and that Black artist had no true style of their own, would inspire Langston Hughes' famous, "The Negro and The Racial Mountain." Five years after this, Schuyler would try his hand at a long fiction form, producing notable novels such as Slaves Today (1931), Black No More (1931), and Black Empire (1936 - 1938); and while Schuyler would continue to produce work up until the point of his death, it was his public and expilicit conservatism and opposition to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s-70s that would push both he and his literary work into obscurity. At the time of his death, his legacy and talent as a writer were so overshadowed by his politics that no one within Black circles wanted to interact with his work at all. Despite this, Schuyler produced some of the first satires by a Black writer and addressed intra-community issues at a time when most Black authors appealed solely to the middle-class.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Martino Fine Books
• Seitenzahl: 160
• Erscheinungstermin: 22. Februar 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 8mm
• Gewicht: 254g
• ISBN-13: 9781614277859
• ISBN-10: 1614277850
• Artikelnr.: 42418599