His life cut short by tuberculosis at 32, Wallace Thurman left a brilliant legacy. As a leader of Harlem's younger generation of intellectuals, salonnière to its literary and artistic avant-gardes, editor of the provocative, short-lived quarterly Fire!!, and author of novels, stories, poems, plays, and criticism, he helped to instigate and express the creative ferment that came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance.
