Лоуренс Джексон – лучшие книги

In his Chester B. Himes (1909–1984), Lawrence P. Jackson depicts the improbable life of the controversial writer whose novels confront sexuality, racism, and social injustice. In absorbing detail, Jackson explores Chester Himes’s middle-class origins, eight years in prison, painful odyssey as a black World War II–era artist, and escape to Europe, where Himes became internationally famous for his Harlem detective series. Praised by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as “one of the towering figures of the black literary tradition,” Himes, author of the bestsellers If He Hollers, Let Him Go and Cotton Comes to Harlem, published twenty literary works over a long career, enhanced by friendships with Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Carl Van Vechten.

Chester B. Himes relies on exclusive interviews and unrestricted access to Himes’s full archives. Jackson restores the legacy of a fascinating maverick determined to etch disturbing portraits of American urban life that remain vivid and contemporary.

The "Indignant Generation" is the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era. The years between these two indispensable epochs saw the communal rise of Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and many other influential black writers. While these individuals have been duly celebrated, little attention has been paid to the political and artistic milieu in which they produced their greatest works. With this commanding study, Lawrence Jackson recalls the lost history of a crucial era.

Looking at the tumultuous decades surrounding World War II, Jackson restores the "indignant" quality to a generation of African American writers shaped by Jim Crow segregation, the Great Depression, the growth of American communism, and an international wave of decolonization. He also reveals how artistic collectives in New York, Chicago, and Washington fostered a sense of destiny and belonging among diverse and disenchanted peoples. As Jackson shows through contemporary documents, the years that brought us "Their Eyes Were Watching God," "Native Son," and "Invisible Man" also saw the rise of African American literary criticism--by both black and white critics.

Fully exploring the cadre of key African American writers who triumphed in spite of segregation, The Indignant Generation paints a vivid portrait of American intellectual and artistic life in the mid-twentieth century.

AUTHOR. INTELLECTUAL. SOCIAL CRITIC. ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WRITERS OF ALL TIME.
RALPH ELLISON. Praise for
Ralph Ellison
Emergence of Genius

"Dr. Lawrence Jackson's remarkable biography of Ralph Ellison is an essential contribution to the scholarship on one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Painstakingly researched and exhaustive, this compelling portrait of Ellison clarifies his genius--and his intellectual era--for a new century."--Charles Johnson, National Book Award Winner and author of Middle Passage

"Lawrence Jackson's absorbing biography of Ralph Ellison makes a vital contribution to American literary history."--Ross Posnock, English Department, New York University, Author of Color and Culture: Black Writers and the Making of the Modern Intellectual

"Professor Lawrence Jackson's painstaking documentation of Ralph Ellison's early life and the beginning of his literary career provides a much needed resource for Ellison's readers and critics."--Horace Porter, author of Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America and Director of African Studies at the University of Iowa

"An eloquently written and exquisitely researched biography. There is nothing quite like it. Jackson breathes life into those hidden nooks and crannies of Ellison's youth that would later become cannon fodder for the grown Ellison's explorations. An utterly groundbreaking biography, the idea of Ralph Ellison will never be the same."--Jerry Watts, author of Heroism and the Black Intellectual: Ralph Ellison, Politics, and Afro-American Intellectual Life