Ntozake Shange (1948– )
Playwright, poet, novelist, children’s writer, and feminist whose plays include A
Photograph: A Study of Cruelty (1977), Spell #7 (1979), The Love Space Demands
(1992), and Hydraulics Phat Like Mean (1998).
Anna Deavere Smith (1950– )
Playwright and actress known for her one-woman shows Fires in the Mirror (1991)
and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1993), both of which deal with race riots.
Natasha Trethewey (1966– )
Poet who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for Native Guard (2006). Her
other books are Domestic Work (2000) and Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002).
Rebecca Walker (1969– )
Feminist author of Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self (2000)
and Baby Love: On Choosing Motherhood after a Lifetime of Ambivalence (2007).
Colson Whitehead (1969– )
Novelist and MacArthur fellow known for such Postmodernist works as The
Intuitionist (1999), John Henry Days (2001), and Apex Hides the Hurt (2006).
John Edgar Wideman (1941– )
Novelist and memoirist who received PEN/Faulkner Awards for Sent for You
Yesterday (1983) and Philadelphia Fire (1990). His other notable works include
the novel Reuben (1987); the short-story collections Damballah (1981), Fever
(1989), and The Stories of John Edgar Wideman (1992); and the memoirs Brothers
and Keepers (1984) and Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and
Society (1994).
Gregory Howard Williams (1944– )
Author of Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He
Was Black (1996).
Sherley Anne Williams (1944–1999)
Novelist, poet, and literary critic best known for the novel Dessa Rose (1986) and
the collection The Peacock Poems (1975).
Kevin Young (1970– )
Poet whose Jelly Roll (2005) was nominated for a National Book Award. He was
strongly influenced by the work of Langston Hughes.
—Kathryn West and Annette Harris Powell