Books That Work… The Norton Anthology of African American Literature By Henry Louis Gates Jr. & Nellie Y. MCKay

 

“Books with Legs”

The late, Ruby Dee would often speak of “Books With Legs…”

This English Language Arts, Norton Anthology collection of literature curated by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. MCKay is considered by them be unique “talking books” about the African American literary heritage.

“Talking Books”

The preface says, “few traditions in the history of the world’s great literatures have origins as curious as that created by African slaves and ex-slaves….in the stubornly durable history of human slavery , it was only the black slaves in England and the United States who created a genre of that, at once, testified against their captors and bore witness to the urge to be free and literate…”.

It is interesting to note since he recently died that this scholarly collection has the late, Amiri Baraka’s play, Dutchman on page 1885.

Third Edition –     ISBN 978-0-393-91155-8

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (General Editor, Harvard University), Valerie Smith (General Editor), William L. Andrews (Editor), Kimberly Benston (Editor), Et Al.

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