About the Author

Arna Bontemps, with whom he collaborated in editing anthologies of African-American literature, characterized Langston Hughes as a "minstrel and a troubadour in the classic sense." Indeed, his early years would seem to suggest as much, featuring travels stateside that took him from his birthplace in Joplin, Missouri, eventually to Topeka, Lincoln, Illinois, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and New York, and internationally across Mexico, France, and Russia.

His various travels reflect, as well, Langston Hughes's wide-ranging literary achievements. His literary career began even during his college days at Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) with the publication of The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew a year later. Hughes also saw his dramatic work produced on Broadway--Mulatto in 1935 and Street Scene in 1947. Two anthologies of African-American literature, The Poetry of the Negro, 1746 – 1949 (1949) and An African Treasury (1960) contributed to a broader readership and appreciation of black literature. Hughes also wrote autobiography, short fiction, and children's literature. His first novel, Not Without Laughter (1930) won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

With Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, and others, Langston Hughes was an integral figure in the 1920's "Harlem Renaissance," a flowering of literature and literary aspirations by a number of writers who drew inspiration from their urban experiences as a community of black writers.

An eclectic writer and observer of the human scene, Langston Hughes contributed richly to the canon of American arts and letters. He died from complications with cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York. The street on which he lived in Harlem, East 127^th, has been renamed "Langston Hughes Place."