Louisiana. Its protagonist is Seremba, a widowed
woman known now as Maum Semba. Some 40
years earlier, she was embroiled in a tense love tri-
angle as a young woman when she stole the heart
of Bob Moore, the fiancé of Amanda Hartwell.
Some time later, Amanda marries a man named
Wesson, and the two couples seem to have gone
their separate ways. Maum Semba and her hus-
band, Bob, have six children, and their youngest, a
daughter named Lucille, eventually becomes en-
gaged to Amanda Wesson’s son, Andrew. In a sav-
age turn of events that mirrored the betrayal and
emotional mayhem in which her own parents were
once involved, however, Amanda’s fiancé aban-
dons her on their wedding day. Lucille succumbs to
the “scorching humiliation” of her sweetheart’s
faithlessness and dies. Her mother is awfully af-
fected by her daughter’s demise and “shrivelled...
into a mummified version of her former self.”
The story opens as a dismayed Maum Semba
learns that Andrew Wesson, his wife, and his
mother, Amanda, will be building a grand, new
home directly in front of her “dilapidated cabin with
its run-to-weeds garden in which she had lost inter-
est since the death of her husband two years ago.”
Outraged by what she regards as an unbearable
“punishment,” Maum Semba seeks the help of a
witch doctor known as Old Elias. She asks him to
help her to “get shet of a enemy.” He offers her a set
of charms for the exorbitant fee of twenty-five dol-
lars and requires that she obtain three items from
Amanda, the enemy whom Maum Semba refuses to
name. Maum Semba is quite innovative about ob-
taining the lock of hair, writing sample, and piece of
clothing from the woman whose heart she helped to
break. Once she does, she is able to imitate the spell
against the Wessons, and she asks that the newly
constructed mansion burn to the ground. She is
overcome when it does, and upon returning to her
cabin falls into a deep sleep. When she awakes, she
finds that she has been burglarized and that her
closely guarded life savings have been stolen. She
seeks out Old Elias for help, but when she discovers
on his floor the key to her treasure box, she realizes
that he has stolen from her and may also have
rigged the fire that destroyed the Wesson home.
The story concludes as Maum Semba, a broken
woman, is forced to realize just how much her jeal-
ousy and long-ago seduction may have cost her.
“Conjure Man” is reminiscent of earlier Harlem
Renaissance works such as “THEBRIEFBIOGRAPHY
OFFLETCHERJ. MOSELY” (1924), a memorable story
by THEOPHILUSLEWIS, in which a woman seeks
help from a witch doctor in order to deal with a
frustrating love affair. Wynbush is especially adept at
crafting riveting tales of intrigue and southern folk
life, and “Conjure Man” is one of her best local-
color stories.Bibliography
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.Conjure-Man Dies, The: A Mystery Tale
of Dark HarlemRudolph Fisher(1932)
A dynamic novel by RUDOLPHFISHERand one of
the earliest published non-serialized mystery novels
by an African American. Fisher, who died tragi-
cally at the age of 37, completed the book just two
years before he passed away. The Conjure-Man Dies
sparked memorable plays during and long after the
Harlem Renaissance ended. The writers COUNTEE
CULLEN and ARNA BONTEMPS collaborated to
stage one of the first dramatic versions of the
novel; it was performed shortly after Fisher’s death
by the Federal Theatre Project.
The Conjure-Man Dies featured some of the
memorable primary characters who appeared in
THEWALLS OFJERICHO(1928), his first novel. In
this next work, Fisher focused on the adventures of
Dr. John Archer, a physician, who finds himself on
the trail of a murderer in HARLEM. Bubber Brown,
a former sanitation worker posing as a private de-
tective who specializes in “affairs of the heart” with
special expertise in issues involving “cheaters and
backbiters” (48), summons Archer to attend to Mr.
Frimbo, a conjure-man who was trained in the arts
at HARVARDUNIVERSITY. The conjure-man is an
African king, who tells fortunes to clients in his
apartment above a local mortuary owned by Stan-
ley Crouch, his landlord. Customers seek out
N’Gana Frimbo at the third-floor apartment in the
130th Street apartment that he occupies. The
building’s features are dark and mysterious and
“about the place hovered an oppressive silence, as92 Conjure-Man Dies, The: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem