and who contributed autobiographical sketches of
her Danish childhood and games that helped to di-
versify further the messages about the range of
African-American origins and backgrounds.
Fauset left The Crisisin 1926, after which she
began graduate studies, enjoyed international
travel, and returned to teaching. Fauset taught
French at the DEWITTCLINTONHIGHSCHOOLin
New York City, the same institution that Countee
Cullen attended.
Fauset was an accomplished writer and pub-
lished in a variety of genres. Her works include
travel essays, short stories, novels, poems, essays,
and reviews. She translated the poetical works of
French West Indian poets and crafted absorbing es-
says on her experiences in Paris as a student and
later as a delegate to the Pan-African Congresses
of the early 1920s. Fauset’s poems were published
in respected collections of African-American po-
etry and in literary journals. JAMES WELDON
JOHNSONselected five of Fauset’s poems for inclu-
sion in his 1921 edited collection, THEBOOK OF
AMERICANNEGROPOETRY:“La Vie C’est la Vie,”
“Christmas Eve in France,” “Dead Fires,” “Ori-
flamme,” and “Oblivion.”
Fauset’s fiction included works that were com-
pelling black female bildungsromans, stories about
coming of age and often painful negotiations of
race and class that people of color experienced.
Her short fiction, much of which appeared in The
Crisis,included “EMMY,” “DOUBLETROUBLE,” and
“THESLEEPER WAKES.” These stories reflected
Fauset’s interest in romance and the ways in which
women grappled with their desires, unrequited
love, and the highly regulated social forums in
which they developed relationships.
Fauset published four novels between 1924
and 1933, and her work was part of a growing
canon of African-American literary realism. The
first, THEREISCONFUSION,was published in 1924
by BONI&LIVERIGHT, the same house that pub-
lished JEANTOOMER’s CANEone year earlier. The
book sold well and was reprinted in 1929, the same
year in which Fauset published PLUM BUN:A
NOVELWITHOUT AMORAL.The book’s publica-
tion is at the heart of one of the most legendary
events of the Harlem Renaissance period. In an ef-
fort to mark Fauset’s achievement, OPPORTUNITY
editor CHARLESS. JOHNSONhosted a festive gath-
ering at the CIVICCLUB. The event drew a number
of leading figures of the period including writers,
editors, activists, and publishers, such as Georgia
Douglas Johnson, W. E. B. DuBois, HORACELIV-
ERIGHT,CARLVANDOREN,ALICEDUNBAR-NEL-
SON, and WALTERWHITE. It quickly became a
larger celebration of African-American creativity
and intellectual prowess. According to historian
Arnold Rampersad, however, Fauset was outraged
by the slights that she received on that night. Al-
though the evening was touted as a celebration of
Fauset’s debut novel, Johnson swiftly reoriented
the focus of the evening. Apparently, “to Fauset’s
barely suppressed but justified fury, given her vastly
superior record, Johnson... hailed as the ‘virtual
dean of the movement’ his own key adviser in cul-
tural matters: the distinguished Howard University
professor, Alain Leroy Locke” (Rampersad, 96).
ALAIN LOCKE benefited even more on that
evening because this also was the occasion that fa-
cilitated his conversation with SURVEYGRAPHIC
founder PAULKELLOGG. The meeting between the
two men ultimately led to the March 1925 Harlem
issue of the magazine and Locke’s pioneering an-
thology THENEWNEGROin 1925.
The title of Plum Bun,Fauset’s second book
and a narrative about the conflicts that racial pass-
ing raises for families of color, was inspired by a
well-known nursery rhyme that referred to leaving
home for the market in order to buy a plum bun.
Indeed, the work reflected the kinds of transitions
between home and the outside world as well as the
pressures of the social marketplace in which indi-
viduals were confronted by their own appetites and
desires.
During the summer of 1931, Fauset completed
her third novel, THECHINABERRYTREE:A NOVEL
OFAMERICANLIFE, and Selected Writings,which
appeared later that year. As Fauset biographer
Cheryl Sylvander notes, the novel was inspired by
a story with which Fauset had become familiar dur-
ing her childhood and which she first considered in
her previously published short story entitled “DOU-
BLETROUBLE.” After some resistance from her
publisher, Frederick A. Stokes Company, Fauset
succeeded in acquiring an introduction from writer
ZONAGALEand an affirmation of her own focus
on middle-class African Americans who defied
prevailing stereotypes. Fauset’s fourth and finalFauset, Jessie Redmon 153