"A very interesting collection . . . both for the way that
Henderson's work links the literature of the Harlem Renaissance
with the black protest literature of Richard Wright and others, and
for Henderson's subject matter and the places that he chose to
publish."
--Nellie McKay, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"There is really no other black fiction quite like this that I know
of, from the 1920s through the 1930s . . . That Henderson was
publishing stories in a newspaper and magazine for the mass market
after the period when 'the vogue of the Negro' had allegedly ended
is significant in itself. The stories are interesting in relation
to both the Negro renaissance and the turn to proletarian fiction."
--George Hutchinson, Indiana University
"Harlem Calling "collects carefully crafted short stories about
life in Alabama, Memphis, and New York City that dramatize the
profound ambivalence many blacks felt about their participation in
the Great Migration. George Wylie Henderson's tales of the rural
South are sometimes nostalgic but also present the hard work and
violence of everyday life there, and his stories set in Harlem
present the glamour of urban life, while they also are concerned
with poverty and social mores.
Henderson enjoyed a widespread popular audience for his periodical
fiction in the 1930s and '40s and was a regular contributor to the
"New York Daily News" and "Redbook" magazine, where the seventeen
stories in "Harlem Calling" were originally published. Until the
publication of "Harlem Calling," Henderson had been chiefly known
for his critically acclaimed 1935 novel about an Alabama farmhand,
"Ollie Miss," and the 1946 sequel narrating her son'smigration to
Harlem, "Jule," Contemporary critics have favorably compared
Henderson's writing to that of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston
Hughes, as it captures the life of the black migrant with a style
that embraces simplicity and honesty.
Collected here by literary scholar and editor David G. Nicholls,
and contextualized with an informative and insightful introduction,
"Harlem Calling" provides a unique perspective on the Harlem
Renaissance and on the African American literary tradition.
George Wylie Henderson (1904-65) was born in Alabama, worked in the
printing trade, and began writing fiction shortly after graduating
from the Tuskegee Institute. He migrated to Harlem with his wife in
the late 1920s and published his first story in the New York Daily
News in 1932. He also published two novels," Ollie Miss "(1935) and
"Jule" (1946). David G. Nicholls is the Director of Book
Publications for the Modern Language Association and holds a Ph.D.
in English from the University of Chicago. He is author of
C"onjuring the Folk: Forms of Modernity in African America,"
General
Imprint: |
The University of Michigan Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
December 2005 |
First published: |
December 2005 |
Editors: |
David G. Nicholls
|
Introduction by: |
David G. Nicholls
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 16mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
144 |
Edition: |
Annotated edition |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-472-11520-4 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
Special features >
Short stories
|
LSN: |
0-472-11520-0 |
Barcode: |
9780472115204 |
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