Contemporary African American literature

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Contemporary African American literature includes a variety of genres and themes orally and in print. It includes stories and experiences of people of color, exploring issues of identity, culture, race, and the human condition.

Who were some of the notable African American writers of the late 18th century?

" It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley."

What type of literature dominated African-American literature before the rise of slave narratives?

"Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives."

What were slave narratives?

"The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives."

What was the Harlem Renaissance and when did it take place?

"The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature and the arts, influenced both by writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands."

Who was the first African American writer to receive the Nobel Prize?

"The Nobel Prize given to Toni Morrison in 1993."

What are some of the themes explored in African-American literature?

"Among the themes and issues explored in this literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and social equality."

What oral forms have African-American writing often incorporated?

"African-American writing has tended to incorporate oral forms, such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues, or rap."

How has the focus of African-American literature changed over time?

"As African Americans' place in American society has changed over the centuries, so has the focus of African-American literature."

What distinguished the literature of freed slaves from the literature of free blacks born in the North?

"There was an early distinction between the literature of freed slaves and the literature of free blacks born in the North. Free blacks expressed their oppression in a different narrative form."

Who were some prominent authors who wrote about racial segregation and black nationalism during the Civil Rights Movement?

"During the Civil Rights Movement, authors such as Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about issues of racial segregation and black nationalism."

What are some well-known works of African-American literature that achieved both popularity and critical acclaim?

"Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley, The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker, which won the Pulitzer Prize; and Beloved by Toni Morrison."

How can African-American literature be defined?

"In broad terms, African-American literature can be defined as writings by people of African descent living in the United States."

What does African-American literature generally focus on?

"African-American literature has generally focused on the role of African Americans within the larger American society and what it means to be an American."

What themes are commonly explored in African-American literature?

"African American literature explores the issues of freedom and equality long denied to Blacks in the United States, along with further themes such as African-American culture, racism, religion, enslavement, a sense of home, segregation, migration, feminism, and more."

How does African-American literature present experience?

"African-American literature presents experience from an African-American point of view."

What was an early theme of African-American literature during the early Republic?

"Thus, an early theme of African-American literature was, like other American writings, what it meant to be a citizen in post-Revolutionary America."

What does African American literary study speak to?

"all African-American literary study 'speaks to the deeper meaning of the African-American presence in this nation. This presence has always been a test case of the nation's claims to freedom, democracy, equality, the inclusiveness of all.'"

How did free blacks in the early Republic try to exercise their autonomy?

"They often tried to exercise their political and social autonomy in the face of resistance from the white public."

What was the genre of literature primarily consisting of memoirs by people who had escaped from enslavement called?

"The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives."

Who were some of the authors involved in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance?

"writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands."