BLACK BOOKS LIVE‪!‬ Black Books Live!

Today we are featuring one of the icons of the Harlem Renaissance, and one of the fathers of Black Literature, Langston Hughes. James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a young child, and he was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen. He moved to Lincoln, Illinois with his mother and her husband for a spell, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Hughes began writing poetry as a teen, and after graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico with his father, followed by a year at Columbia University in New York City. During this time, he worked odd jobs and began to write in earnest. Hughes claimed Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. and in 1926, after Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was published by Alfred A. Knopf He graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1929 and in 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter (Knopf, 1930), won the Harmon gold medal for literature.Harlem functioned as Hughe’s muse and he wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, in particular being connected to the world of jazz. His work was one of the cornerstones that defined the Harlem Renaissance, but Hughes vision encompassed the stories of Black people throughout the United States.He established his voice through a variety of mediums, contributing articles and writing a longstanding newspaper column in the Chicago Defender and other papers to develop the Jesse B Simple character which turned into four volumes of prose. He compiled and edited “The Poetry of the Negro” alongside Arna Borntemps, bringing new black voices into the literary fold, and he penned a dozen plays, childrens books and the acclaimed autobiography, “The Big Sea”. The critic Donald B. Gibson noted in the introduction to Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice Hall, 1973) that Hughes “differed from most of his predecessors among black poets… in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes was turning outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read... Until the time of his death, he spread his message humorously—though always seriously—to audiences throughout the country, having read his poetry to more people (possibly) than any other American poet.”In Hughes’s own words, his poetry is about "workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters on Lenox Avenue in New York, or Seventh Street in Washington or South Side in Chicago—people up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten, buying furniture on the installment plan, filling the house with roomers to help pay the rent, hoping to get a new suit for Easter—and pawning that suit before the Fourth of July."Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York City. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem has been given landmark status. His ashes are interred beneath a floor medallion in the middle of the foyer in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.Today, Black Books Live will present three of Hughes works of short fiction that were featured in “The Short Stories of Langston Hughes”, edited by Dr. Akiba Sullivan Harper, published in 1996. The stories are presented in the following order:  “Rock, Church”, “Trouble With Angels”, and “Spanish Blood,” a short story by Langston Hughes first published in “Metropolis,” magazine. December 29, 1934.

For this episode, we are featuring the work of yet another living master: award winning playwright and novelist J. California Cooper .  After gaining notoriety as a playwright, Cooper turned her attention to novels and short stories; she has since published 13 books, including A Piece of Mine, Homemade Love, which was awarded the 1989 American Book Award; Some Soul to Keep, In Search of Satisfaction, and her latest, Life is Short but Wide, published in 2009.

Cooper is known for her witty, conversational style that draws readers into the world of her characters, with her stories often centering on women dealing with vicissitudes of life as told by a folksy narrator.
This podcast features Cher Jey reading excerpts of "The Lost and the Found", from Cooper's short story collection "The Future has a Past".

Arthur Flowers is the author of two novels, 'Another Good Loving Blues' and 'De Mojo Blues'. He has also written a nonfiction memoir, 'Mojo Rising: Confessions of a 21st Century Conjureman' and other books. Flowers states that his work is focused on "the interplay between literature, mythwork and human destiny." He augments this work of creative production through cultural retention with the modern trappings of cyberspace, as he regularly posts on his blog, Rootsblog- a cyberhoodoo webspace. He is a founding member/director of New Renaissance Writers Guild of NYC, The Griot Shop based in Memphis, and the Pan African Literary Forum.  He is a former Executive Director of the Harlem Writers Guild. Flowers currently teaches literature at Syracuse University. 

In this episode we are presenting excerpts of his classic novel, an epic rooted in the blues of his native Memphis Tennessee. Black Books Live proudly presents to you excerpts from Arthur Flower's 'Another Good Loving Blues'.

When one thinks of books and thinks of Toni, we all know who comes to mind- our Nobel laureate, Pulitzer prize winning grand dame, Toni Morrison. Yet in the world of literature, there are two 'Tonis', and today we are focusing on the equally important Toni Cade Bambara. As with last weeks episode, our featured writer was brought up in the fertile creative environment of Harlem New York. Bambara's approach to writing was shaped in this culturally rich community and later augmented with an extensive academic and professional pedigree. The result is a singular style of prose characterized by poetic streams of consciousness, non-linear plots, incredibly diverse dialogue that is unerringly tuned into the nuances of race, gender, age, and culture, as well as a commitment to connecting contemporary events to the fate of her characters. Bambara's first book, 'The Black Woman' published in 1971, was a groundbreaking anthology which featured women writers. Her collections of short fiction, 'Gorilla, My Love' and 'The Seabirds Are Still Alive', established her voice in the American Literary landscape. Her 1980 masterpiece, the novel 'The Salt Eaters', won the American Book Award. Bambara then turned her attention to filmmaking, collaborating with Louis Massiah of the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia to create the award winning documentary 'The Bombing of Osage Avenue'. In 1995, Toni Cade Bambara joined the ancestors, but she left behind two more books; one a collection of fiction and essays entitled 'Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions', and a haunting novel about the Atlanta child murders, 'Those Bones Are Not My Child', which was editing by Toni Morrison herself. Black Books Live is presenting three excerpts today.

For our first podcast, we present James Baldwin's 'Sonny's Blues'. Born and raised in Harlem, James Baldwin's writing and his work on behalf of African Americans is known worldwide. His debut novel 'Go Tell It on the Mountain, and his powerful collections of non-fiction, 'Notes of A Native Son, 'Nobody Knows My Name' and 'The Fire Next Time, established him as one of the most important literary voices of the 20th century. 'Sonny's Blues', which first appeared in The Partisan Review in 1957, and later on in Baldwins short fiction collection, 'Going to Meet The Man', in 1965. This story is an example of Baldwin at his finest: a story about family, community, race, and yes Music. This story's central relationship is between two brothers, one a teacher and dutiful husband, the other, a troubled, but rising jazz pianist recently paroled after being imprisoned for selling heroin. Baldwin's masterful expression of his character's inner dialogue, best exemplified by the title character's struggle to reconnect with his skills on the bandstand, gives us a clear view into the mind of an artist and an eloquent description of jazz.