Wright and MARGARETWALKERbecame part of
his new literary and social circle.
Bontemps’s friendship with Langston Hughes
endured almost as long as his marriage. The two
men, who met first in 1924, wrote regularly during
their 41-year friendship, and their letters reveal
much about the stark realities of pursuing a writing
career during the Harlem Renaissance, the evolu-
tion of their writing sensibilities, the nature of their
diverse and successful collaborations, and their
perspectives on leading figures of the day, many of
whom were close friends. As Charles Nichols notes
in his edition of the selected correspondence, the
“letters are most affecting” because they reveal the
“good-humored and steady struggle” by the writers
“to refine their work and gain a hearing in the
world of letters” (Nichols, 11). They exchanged
work with each other; offered frank but supportive
criticism; shared strategies for professional ad-
vancement; critiqued contemporary books, plays,
and other cultural events; and mused about the di-
rections of African-American literature as re-
flected during and after the Harlem Renaissance.
In the wake of the publication of POPO ANDFI-
FINA (1932), their first collaborative children’s
book venture, Bontemps asked his friend about his
impressions of the prepublication print. “And how
did you like it,” he asked. “I was pleasantly sur-
prised. I like the style of the drawings—those that I
have seen. But I will not be joyful unless you are
too” (Nichols, 18). When Hughes was poised to
publish his autobiography THEBIGSEA(1940)
with KNOPF, Bontemps encouraged his friend to
garner all of the publicity that he could. “Please let
me know when Big Seawill be published,” he
wrote. “And have the Knopf publicity man call the
attention of Gabriel Heater [sic] of ‘We The Peo-
ple’ to you about that time. This should put you
right in the groove for that program and a good
send-off. I intend to write him, too, when the date
approaches. The fact that you have an autobiogra-
phy at this age should be arresting immediately. A
few details should do the rest. With or without
this, of course, I’m ready to bet a Stetson the book
becomes a best seller” (Nichols, 47).
Bontemps’s fiction, in particular, reflected his
deep interest in African-American history. After
the publication of God Sends Sunday,an energetic,
but tragic, novel about a self-confident African-
American jockey that was inspired by his Uncle
Buddy’s vivid tales of the South, Bontemps pub-
lished two substantial works in which he revisited
key moments of black self-determination and re-
volt. The first was BLACKTHUNDER:GABRIEL’s
REVOLT,VIRGINIA 1800, published in 1936 by
Macmillan Press. In the novel, which reviewers for
The New York Timespraised for its “simplicity, pre-
cision and elasticity of prose” (NYT,2 February
1936: BR7), Bontemps recreated the life of Gabriel
Prosser, the slave whose daring revolt against cruel
and complicit white slave owners and their families
was betrayed. The second, DRUMS ATDUSK,fo-
cused on Haiti during the 18th century and the
slave revolt that culminated in freedom for its en-
slaved population. Margaret Wallace, who re-
viewed the work in The New York Times,described
Bontemps as “an American Negro novelist and an
earnest student of Haitian history” and congratu-
lated him on his rich imagery and the “restrained
intensity in [his] prose, which makes the most
scenes he might easily have been tempted to over-
write” (NYT,7 May 1939). Bontemps finished the
bulk of the manuscript before traveling to Haiti
during the year in which he held a JULIUSROSEN-
WALDFELLOWSHIP. Some critics suggested that the
novel would have been enriched further if he had
been able to immerse himself in the culture and
history before completing the novel.
Bontemps, who eventually turned away from
writing historical fiction and toward writing litera-
ture for children, developed a significant record of
publications in the popular periodical press during
the Harlem Renaissance. Short stories such as
“Barrel Staves” (1934) and “Dang Little Squirt”
(1935) appeared published in the journals CHAL-
LENGE and NEW CHALLENGE, which writer
DOROTHY WEST established in the late 1930s.
Bontemps was committed to providing African-
American children with substantial and absorbing
literature. Inspired by his desire to provide such
rich materials for his own children and to combat
the prevailing literary stereotypes of African Ameri-
cans and their history, he soon established himself
as one of the most highly regarded writers of chil-
dren’s literature. His 16 works for children included
collaborations with Langston Hughes, fiction,
travel narratives, and histories. The titles included
Popo and Fifina: Children of Haiti(1932), You Can’tBontemps, Arnaud (Arna) Wendell 57