Harlem in review

by John Earl Bassett

Harlem in Review charts critical responses to black American writers in the 1920s and 1930s. Based on broad research into American and African-American journals and newspapers, it includes more than a thousand annotated items and an introduction surveying major issues in the criticism. The Harlem Renaissance inspired widespread interest in black culture as well as the first public debates among black writers about their own writing. With the publication of Harlem Shadows, Cane, and the early novels of Jessie Fauset and Walter White, American readers heard about contributions of "The New Negro" to literature. Anthologies of poetry and folklore made more texts in black culture available than ever before. Two issues divided black writers. One, articulated in a debate between Hughes and the more conservative George Schuyler, was over the value of using specifically black cultural forms and materials.^ The other issue, portrayal of black characters in fiction, can best be studied in reviews