viii Encyclopedia of African-American Literature
Moreover, DuBois would find the now-undeni-
able progress and contributions made by African
Americans in their efforts to create and validate
an African-American literary tradition emblema-
tized in the history-making publication of sev-
eral anthologies by major presses, specifically the
Norton Anthology of African American Literature
(1997), Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology
of the African American Literary Tradition (River-
side, 1997), Cornerstones: An Anthology of African
American Literature (St. Martin’s, 1996), and Tr o u-
ble the Water: 250 Years of African American Poetry
(Mentor Books 1997), as well as major reference
works such as The Oxford Companion to Afri-
can American Literature (1997) and Macmillan’s
African American Literary Criticism, 1773 to 2000
(1999). Equally significant are major electronic
productions, such as the Encarta Africana multi-
media encyclopedia maintained by Harvard’s Pro-
fessors Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony
Appiah at Africana.com; the related site Encyclo-
pedia Africana, managed by Henry DuBois (W.
E. B. DuBois’s grandson); and the online Oxford
African American Studies Center.
African-American writers of serious and popu-
lar literature have never been more influential. They
are interviewed on Good Morning America and The
Today Show, as well as Sixty Minutes. Their works
are regularly selected and celebrated by members of
Oprah’s Book Club; reviewed in the New York Times
Book Review, Publications of the Modern Language
Association, African American Review, and Callaloo;
promoted in Black Issues Book Review; and taught
on college and university campuses across the
country. African-American writers are noted for
embracing, validating, and proclaiming an America
that is diverse, beautiful, and complex.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The Encyclopedia of African-American Literature
covers the entire spectrum of the African-Ameri-
can literary tradition, from the 18th-century writ-
ings of pioneers such as Equiano and Wheatley to
20th-century canonic texts to the finest of today’s
best-selling authors. This volume includes entries
on major and minor writers, including writers
of fiction and nonfiction, poets, dramatists, and
critics, as well as entries on the finest works of
African-American literature, from all genres and
time periods.
Browsers will find entries on all the canonical
autobiographers, novelists, and poets, including
Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Charles Chesnutt,
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, Paule
Marshall, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, John Edgar
Wideman, and August Wilson. The volume also
highlights a host of emerging (in some cases
already award-winning) literary voices, such as
Jeffrey Reynard Allen, Toi Derricotte, Pearl Cleage,
Thomas Glade, E. Lynn Harris, William Henry
Lewis, Sapphire, Danzy Senna, and Trey Ellis, and
popular fiction writers, such as Jerome Dickey,
Omar Tyree, and Zane, whose works are read-
ily available and whose readers are numerous and
diverse. Finally, this volume includes discussions
of the major critical and theoretical schools and
scholars that have influenced the perception and
reception of this body of material, as well as entries
on important terms, themes, historical events, and
more. Entries are cross-referenced for ease of use.
Given the successful movement toward vali-
dation and inclusivity witnessed today, the edi-
tors found it imperative to include a handful of
representative voices from hip-hop culture, and
specifically from rap poetry. Our intention does
not signal, in any way, a decision to be blind to,
supportive of, or cavalier about the pervasive
colonialist, nihilistic, oppressive, drug-promoting,
homophobic, lust-filled, and misogynist mes-
sages of many rap videos and lyrics, often, but not
exclusively, by gangster rappers. Such messages
proclaim, as bell hooks notes, that “Blackness rep-
resents violence and hate” (53). We do not mean
to endorse such particular views or ideologies.
However, we recognize that hip-hop culture
is firmly rooted in the call-and-response cadence
that undergirds African-American culture in gen-
eral and the African-American literary tradition
specifically and that can be heard in everything
from Negro spirituals, work songs, blues, and jazz
to the poetry of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou,