Arna Wendell Bontemps born in 1902, had a long career as a man-of-letters, a varied-poet, fictionist, playwright, biographer, historian, anthologist-but he is chiefly associated with that period of Afro-American literary achievement that has come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance - (Canaday, 164).
While growing up he was heavily drawn to the Harlem Renaissance and had friendships with Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois and many others.
Bontemps published his first novel, God Sends Sunday, in 1931. This first work was a quintessential piece of Harlem Renaissance literature, showing the decadence culture of Louisiana and drawing from his own childhood observances.
Bontemps also collaborated with Langston Hughes on a children’s piece called Popo and Fifina, published in 1932, that serves as an introduction to Haitian life and culture. This was a period of constant migration for Bontemps family, as they moved from New York to California, to Alabama, where he wrote Black Thunder. One of his more well-known novels, Black Thunder focuses on a fictional slave uprising near Richmond, Virginia in the early 1800s. (adapted from Arthurashe)
In 1944 he was appointed head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and, for the next twenty-one years worked hard in developing the university’s collection of African-American literature and culture until his retirement in 1964.
His 1948 publication, Story of a Negro, was highly praised and received the Jane Addams Book Award. Bontmeps wrote many books for children as well as young adults.
Let the Church Roll On - The Old South
Let the Church Roll On was published posthumously in 1973. The stories from The Old South evoke the race relations of the 1930s and are set chiefly in Alabama. depicts a celebration of the ordinance of footwashing in a building at Mount Pleasant that is as hot as an oven. There is much fanning and perspiration coming from the crowded pews, and the elders of the congregation file down the centre aisle dressed more like participants in a lodge "turnout" than worshippers. During the washing, one gorilla-looking brother, his dirt-colored underwear showing, enters the aisle to perform a thudding tribal dance; his bare feet pound the floor like African drum beats.
The service, full of farcical elements, turns into a finale of barefoot dancers, while the children on the mourners bench share a roasted sweet potato that one of the brats has sneaked into his pocket. Both fictionalised folk tales, "Rock, Church, Rock" and "Let the Church Roll On," come straight out of the Huntsville years. Both are decidedly Southern, as is nearly everything else that came from Bontemps' pen.
Adapted from the free library source.
Adapted from the free library source.
No comments:
Post a Comment