Women of the Harlem Renaissance: Poems & Stories

Marissa Constantinou

Sep 2022 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that saw an explosion of Black art, music and writing, yet few female creatives are remembered alongside their male counterparts.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. Women of the Harlem Renaissance is edited by Marissa Constantinou and introduced by Professor Kate Dossett.

Exploring subjects from love, loss and motherhood to jazz, passing and Jim Crow law, the poems and stories collected in this anthology celebrate the women of colour at the heart of the movement. Alice Dunbar-Nelson parades through New Orleans in ‘A Carnival Jangle’ whilst Carrie Williams Clifford takes to Fifth Avenue in ‘Silent Protest Parade’, and Nella Larsen seeks a mother’s protection in ‘Sanctuary’. Showcasing popular authors alongside writers you might discover for the first time, this collection of daring and disruptive writing encapsulates early twentieth-century America in surprising and beautiful ways.

About the author

Women of the Harlem Renaissance features writing by: Nella Larsen, Gwendolyn B. Bennett, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Eloise Bibb Thompson, Leila Amos Pendleton, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Clara Ann Thompson, Jessie Fauset, Carrie Williams Clifford, Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, Angelina Weld Grimké, Gertrude Mossell and Marita Bonner.

Professor Kate Dossett is a cultural historian of the twentieth-century United States. She has published widely on Black cultural and literary histories, including her prize-winning books Bridging Race Divides: Black Feminism, Nationalism, and Integration, 1896-1935 and Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal. She is currently Professor of American History at the University of Leeds.