The Life of Langston Hughes: 1902-1941 : I Too, Sing America
ラングストン・ヒューズの生涯を追う伝記の第1巻。
Work Information
1902年から1941年までをたどる。
アーノルド・ランパサードは、ヒューズの前半生を丹念に描く大部の伝記をまとめる。
Book Information
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 16.51 x 3.91 x 24.13 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780195040111
- ISBN-10
- 0195040112
- Price
- 17847 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Biographies & Memoirs
Poet, playwright, novelist, a grand figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s--Langston Hughes was one of the most extraordinary and prolific American writers of this century. This book is the first installment of a projected two-volume life that will undoubtedly be the definitive biography of Hughes. Based on exhaustive research in archival collections throughout the country and abroad but primarily in the Langston Hughes Papers (previously closed to most scholars) at the Beinecke Library of Yale University, the book traces in detail Hughes's life from his birth in Missouri in 1902 to the winter of 1941. Descended from a family steeped in radical Abolitionism (an ancestor had fought and died with John Brown at Harper's Ferry), Hughes was a driven man who often gave the appearance of a happy wanderer. His nomadic life led him to Mexico in 1919 and 1920, Africa in 1923, Europe in 1924, and the Soviet Union in 1932. After his exhilarating Russian travels, he completed a journey around the world by way of China and Japan, and in 1937, he spent several months in besieged Madrid at the height of the Spanish Civil War. Hughes's greatest devotion, however, was to the word. Inspired by both the democratic chants of Walt Whitman and the vibrant forms of Afro-American culture, he became the most original and revered of black poets as well as a fiction writer and dramatist of considerable power. Although his political vision was often radical and his sense of injustice acute, he faced the world as an open, laughing, and gregarious man. Yet, as this compelling biography shows, there lurked beneath the laughter a gnawing loneliness that Hughes strove to overcome in his devotion to his art and his ideal vision of America.
Reviews
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An amazing biography by an amazing biographer.
Such a poignant and well-written work about a a great American writer whose work, while not neglected, is still under appreciated for its importance. In these times it would be brilliant for a new edition of this work to be in print. Arnold Rampersad is a treasure.
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Great biography
While I wasn't a big fan of Langston Hughes before, after reading this wonderful biography, I have grown to appreciate what an amazing person Hughes was. I couldn't put volume I down and now I'm on volume II.
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Such a detailed biography of a great poet!!!
I had used this book to prepare a chapter on the life on Langston Hughes I taught for my 4th grade class .
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Great read
Great book about one of the most interesting writers in American history. Like most other biographies of famous African-Americans of the early 1900s, the book is not only a great look into Hughes' life, but also into some of the darkest times in the history of the United States. Being that this takes place before integration and in the era of Jim Crow, the book will upset at times, but Hughes is a fascinating character and it will keep you pulled in from start to finish. If you want to know about Langston Hughes, this is it.
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Marvelous biography
Well researched and well written, especially interesting to me after having just read Langston Hughes's own two volumes of autobiography. I strongly recommend this--with one caveat. I believe Langston was probably gay or bisexual, and I wonder if the author, through the screen of today's social awareness (this book was published in mid-80s) might agree. If so, LH was certainly deeply closeted, but the clues abound. The man was a genius who is well served by this perceptive biography.