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This compilation of sixteen plays written during the Harlem Renaissance brings together for the first time the works of Langston Hughes, George S. Schuyler, Francis Hall Johnson, Shirley Graham, and others. In the introduction, James V. Hatch sets the plays in a historical context as he describes the challenges presented to artists by the political and social climate of the time. The topics of the plays cover the realm of the
human experience in styles as wide-ranging as poetry, farce, comedy, tragedy, social realism, and romance. Individual introductions to each play provide essential biographical background on the playwrights.
In the continuing rediscovery of writers and works from the Harlem Renaissance, Lost Plays of the Harlem Renaissance 1920-1940 serves as essential background for contemporary readers and is a valuable contribution to African American literary and theatrical scholarship.
About the author
Leo Hamalian, a Ph.D. from Columbia University, is a professor of English at The City College of New York. He has written or edited more than one dozen volumes, including As Others See Us and In Search of
Eden, and is currently editor of Ararat.
James V. Hatch is a professor of English at the City University of New York. A Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, he edited Black Theatre in the U.S.A., 1847-1974 and Black
Playwrights, 1825-1977: An Annotated Bibliography.
