(1) and the only black who won Nobel Prize)

I. Richard Wright

1. life

2. works

(1) Uncle Tom’s Children: Four Novellas

(2) Native Son

(3) Black Boy

(4) The Outsider (the first novel of existentialism in America, published in France)

3. themes and subjects

His common theme is to condemn racism, urge reform, criticize evils of society. His books focus on racial conflict and physical violence. They review the devastating effect of institutionalized hatred (hatred brought by social system) and humiliation on black males’ psyche. They affirmed dignity and humility of society’s outcasts.

4. writing techniques – realism, naturalism

He tries to show that people cannot escape from society. Therefore, society must be changed. He is a father figure, especially to the writers of violence.

II. Ralph Ellison

1. life

2. works: Invisible Man

significance: It has a universality of theme (problems of all modern people), not only regional dilemma of existence.

3. attitude: complexity of art – the best art makes good politics, not vice versa.

III. James Baldwin

1. life

2. works

(1) Go Tell It on the Mountain

(2) Notes of a Native Son

(3) Nobody Knows My Name

(4) The Fire Next Time

3. point of view

Baldwin calls for the blacks to resort to means including force so as to bring about the nation’s self-realization. He saw love and understanding as difficult but necessary way to overcome racial conflict.

4. themes: race, homosexuality

IV. Alice Walker

1. life

2. works

(1) Once (a collection of poems)

(2) In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (“womanism” instead of feminism)

(3) The Colour Purple (epistolary)

 

I. Toni Morrison

1. life

2. works

(1) The Bluest Eye

(2) Sula

(3) Song of Solomon (the best black novel after Native Son and Invisible Man)

(4) Tar Baby

(5) Beloved

(6) Jazz

(7) Love (trilogy)

3. themes: love, guilt, history, individual, gender, race, religion

4. purpose: to empower the black people to act for themselves, to recognize for their own world, own history, own reality

5. style – many kinds of factors: naturalism, realism, fantasy, reality, magical realism