A series of vignettes exploring African American life as it relates to social, political and family dynamics. For many, Cane is considered a literary masterpiece from visionary writer, Jean Toomer. He presents a diverse collection of tales with distinct and vibrant characters who populate a world that's all too familiar. HEADLINE: Jean Toomer delivers a vivid depiction of America in the early twentieth century that centers the Black experience, consisting of family, religion, romance and race. It's a detailed work of fiction that's closely rooted in reality. A collection of disparate stories illustrating the challenges and motivations of Black people in the United States. The author uses poetry and imagery to create a world that's recognizable but also unique. In "Seventh Street," the narrative follows the happenings of a historic neighborhood with links to World War I and Prohibition. There's also "Blood Burning Moon," which highlights a volatile love triangle that leads to tragic results. It's an insightful read that introduces outsiders to a different point of view. Jean Toomer's Cane is highly revered for its unique structure and compelling storytelling. It presents a brilliant contrast of rural and urban living, while acknowledging the racial disparities of both. This modern classic was crucial in establishing and cementing Toomer's literary legacy. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Cane is both modern and readable.

A series of vignettes exploring African American life as it relates to social, political and family dynamics. For many, Cane is considered a literary masterpiece from visionary writer, Jean Toomer. He presents a diverse collection of tales with distinct and vibrant characters who populate a world that's all too familiar. HEADLINE: Jean Toomer delivers a vivid depiction of America in the early twentieth century that centers the Black experience, consisting of family, religion, romance and race. It's a detailed work of fiction that's closely rooted in reality. A collection of disparate stories illustrating the challenges and motivations of Black people in the United States. The author uses poetry and imagery to create a world that's recognizable but also unique. In "Seventh Street," the narrative follows the happenings of a historic neighborhood with links to World War I and Prohibition. There's also "Blood Burning Moon," which highlights a volatile love triangle that leads to tragic results. It's an insightful read that introduces outsiders to a different point of view. Jean Toomer's Cane is highly revered for its unique structure and compelling storytelling. It presents a brilliant contrast of rural and urban living, while acknowledging the racial disparities of both. This modern classic was crucial in establishing and cementing Toomer's literary legacy. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Cane is both modern and readable.

This collection of unpublished writings by Jean Toomer offers new insight into the thinking of the author of Cane. Often spiritual in tenor, the range of works reproduced here trace the evolution of a complex philosophy of kinship and self-determination through which Toomer hoped to transcend social and cultural definitions of race. Presenting a varied assemblage of correspondence, poetry, short fiction, and essays, Professor Rusch provides shape and focus for a collection of works by an author overdue for scholarly rediscovery in American classrooms.

First published in 1923, Jean Toomer s Cane is an innovative literary work part drama, part poetry, part fiction powerfully evoking black life in the South. Rich in imagery, Toomer s impressionistic, sometimes surrealistic sketches of Southern rural and urban life are permeated by visions of smoke, sugarcane, dusk, and fire; the northern world is pictured as a harsher reality of asphalt streets. This iconic work of American literature is published with a new afterword by Rudolph Byrd of Emory University and Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University, who provide groundbreaking biographical information on Toomer, place his writing within the context of American modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, and examine his shifting claims about his own race and his pioneering critique of race as a scientific or biological concept."

Jean Toomer (1894-1967) was a modernist writer, a member of the Harlem Renaissance, and briefly part of the literary and artistic community that grew up around Mabel Dodge Luhan in Taos, New Mexico. This book, a critical edition of a previously unpublished 1935 manuscript, makes A Drama of the Southwest available to readers for the first time. The play provides a vivid glimpse into the social world of the artists who mined Taos for creative and spiritual renewal in the early twentieth century, and editor Dekker provides cultural and literary historical context, arguing for Toomer's continuing creative power and significance at a time in his career that has been largely overlooked by critics.

Jean Toomer's Cane is one of the most significant works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance and is considered to be a masterpiece in American modernist literature due to its distinct structure and style. First published in 1923 and told through a series of vignettes, Cane uses poetry, prose and play-like dialogue to create a window into the varied lives of African Americans living in the rural South and urban North during a time when Jim Crow laws pervaded and racism reigned.