William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris
400 entries
This abridged and updated edition of the acclaimed Oxford Companion to African American Literature presents more than 400 biographies of authors, critics, literary characters, and historical figures, and 150 plot summaries of major works. An extensive essay captures the full sweep of African-American writing in the U.S. from the colonial and early national eras to the present day.
A breathtaking achievement, this Concise Companion is a suitable crown to the astonishing production in African-American literature and criticism that has swept over American literary studies in the last two decades. It offers an enormous range of writers -from Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass, from Zora Neale Hurston to Ralph Ellison, and from Toni Morrison to August Wilson. It contains entries on major works (including synopses of novels), such as Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. It also incorporates information on literary characters such as Bigger Thomas, Coffin Ed Johnson, Kunta Kinte, Sula Peace, as well as on character types such as Aunt Jemima, and Brer Rabbit.
Icons of black culture are addressed, including Muhammad Ali, John Coltrane, Marcus Garvey, Jackie Robinson, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. There are general articles on poetry, fiction, and drama; on autobiography, slave narratives, Sunday School literature, and oratory; as well as on a wide spectrum of related topics.
It gathers works from a vast array of sources - from the black periodical press to women's clubs - making it one of the most substantial guides available on the growing, exciting world of African-American literature.
William L. Andrews is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Frances Smith Foster is Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Women's Studies, at Emory University.
Trudier Harris is J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English at the University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill.
