University of North Carolina Press
The North Carolina Roots of African American Literature: An Anthology
Key Metrics
- William L Andrews
- University of North Carolina Press
- Paperback
- 9780807856659
- 9.26 X 6.4 X 0.88 inches
- 1.06 pounds
- Literary Collections > American - African American & Black
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
The first African American to publish a book in the South, the author of the first female slave narrative in the United States, the father of black nationalism in America--these and other founders of African American literature have a surprising connection to one another: they all hailed from the state of North Carolina.
This collection of poetry, fiction, autobiography, and essays showcases some of the best work of eight influential African American writers from North Carolina during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In his introduction, William L. Andrews explores the reasons why black North Carolinians made such a disproportionate contribution (in quantity and lasting quality) to African American literature as compared to that of other southern states with larger African American populations. The authors in this anthology parlayed both the advantages and disadvantages of their North Carolina beginnings into sophisticated perspectives on the best and the worst of which humanity, in both the South and the North, was capable. They created an African American literary tradition unrivaled by that of any other state in the South.
Writers included here are Charles W. Chesnutt, Anna Julia Cooper, David Bryant Fulton, George Moses Horton, Harriet Jacobs, Lunsford Lane, Moses Roper, and David Walker.
Author Bio
Dr. William L. Andrews is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Andrews has authored or edited more than 40 books on a wide range of African American literature and culture. He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
His first book, "The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt" (1980), deals with a seminal figure in the development of African American and Southern American prose fiction.
"The Norton Anthology of African American Literature" (1997), "The Oxford Companion to African American Literature" (1997) and "The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology" (1997), are three big collaborative projects that he has co-edited.
Andrews is series editor of "North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920" (http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh), a complete digitized library of autobiographies and biographies of North American slaves and ex-slaves, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ameritech and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He continues to study the historical linkages between white and black writers in the formation of American literature, African American literature and Southern literature.
Research Interests
Southern LiteratureAmerican Literature to 1900African American LiteratureSlaveryDigital Humanities
Education
Education
- B.A., 1968, Davidson College
- M.A., 1970, Ph.D., 1973, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Source: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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