The Short Stories of Langston Hughes

The Short Stories of Langston Hughes

The Short Stories of Langston Hughes, written between 1919 and 1963, showcases the author's literary blossoming and the development of his personal and artistic concerns. Many of the stories assembled here have long been out of print, and others never before collected. These poignant, witty, angry, and deeply poetic stories demonstrate Hughes's uncanny gift for elucidating the most vexing questions of American race relations and human nature in general. Sometimes called the Poet Laureate of Black America, Langston Hughes was also an accomplished writer of fiction, with a novel and several collections of stories to his credit. This collection brings together nearly 50 of Hughes's best stories. Many are drawn from three earlier collections, but some are between book covers for the first time. Of special note for anyone interested in Hughes's development as a writer are three stories written when Hughes was a high school student in Cleveland. “Perhaps more than any other writer in American history, Hughes was able to capture 'the Harlemness of the American predicament' (to quote Ralph Ellison's wonderful phrase), in words that had the ring of truth not just in literary circles but in barbershops and beauty parlors of everyday Harlem itself.” ― Robert G. O'Meally, New York Newsday “[Hughes's] fiction...manifests his 'wonder at the world.' As these stories reveal, that wonder has lost little of its shine.” ― Brooke Horvath, The Cleveland Plain Dealer “A good example of how Hughes attempted the balancing act of writing an engaged literary and genuinely popular literature that spoke for and of the everyday lives of African-Americans.” ― James Smethurst, Chicago Tribune Langston Hughes (1902-67) was born in Joplin, Missouri, was educated at Lincoln University, and lived for most of his life in New York City. He is best known as a poet, but he also wrote novels, biography, history, plays, and children's books. Among his works are two volumes of memoirs, The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander , and two collections of Simple stories, The Best of Simple and The Return of Simple . Akiba Sullivan Harper is a professor of English at Spelman College and the editor of The Return of Simple . Arnold Rampersad , Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton University, is the author of The Life of Langston Hughes and editor of The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes .