The Book of Negro Folklore by Langston Hughes

But the prolific Hughes wrote in every genre, from fiction and autobiography to gospel plays, musicials, song lyrics and television scripts. Always the troubadour, Hughes gained wide recognition by carrying his books around with him, selling them one by one wherever he read his poems. Most people know Hughes through his famous folk character Jesse B. Hughes is mainly known for his poetry, for the original ways he used Afro-American forklore in his work. Fundamentally, they were very different men. They were so similar in appearance that they were often mistaken for each other. More than anything else, the monumental anthologies they edited - The Book of Negro Folklore, Poetry of the Negro, Best Short Stories by Negro Writers, Great Slave Narratives - symbolize the achievements of these literary giants for in these books they kept the records of a tradition, preserving its roots, assuring its continuity.īoth Hughes and Bontemps were born in 1902, and both began their careers by winning prizes in the famous Crisis writing contests sponsored by the NAACP in the 1920s. For half a century these two writers put out the work that has ensured the growth and systematic development of an Afro-American literary tradition. IN THE PERSONAL library of any Afro-American scholar the combined works of Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps would take up a shelf at least six feet long.

The Book of Negro Folklore by Langston Hughes