A year after arriving in New York City, he discov-
ered Harlem.
When Nugent told his mother he had decided
to become a writer, she sent him back to Washing-
ton, D.C., to live with his grandmother (who had
connections with ALAIN LOCKE). Nugent began to
frequent the Saturday salons for writers hosted
by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON. On one occasion
Johnson introduced Nugent to Hughes, a meeting
that changed the faltering direction of Nugent’s
life forever. Nugent wrote that Hughes “was a
made-to-order Hero” for him (Watson, 91). Nu-
gent followed Hughes back to Harlem shortly
thereafter.
Despite his ubiquitous presence in Harlem
and intimate friendship with the black luminaries
who inhabited “Niggerati Manor,” a term Nugent
coined and WALLACE THURMAN (his roommate)
popularized in Infants of the Spring (1932), a sat-
ire of the “New Negro,” Nugent remains a minor
player among the giants of the HARLEM RENAIS-
SANCE. Nevertheless, Nugent carved a historical
place for himself on the wall of fame of renais-
sance stars: He was, with Hughes, ZORA NEALE
HURSTON, and Thurman, one of the coeditors of
Fire!!!, the avant-garde journal they hoped would
represent the true voice of the younger generation
of African-American writers, unlike Locke’s edited
anthology The NEW NEGRO, in which, ironically,
they had all published their works. Along with his
drawing of Nordic figures, Nugent also published
“SMOKE, LILIES, AND JADE,” now his signature short
story, in the first and only issue of Fire!!, which ap-
peared in November 1926.
The homosexual theme in “Smoke, Lilies, and
Jade” is currently celebrated as a historical first.
Like Nugent, Alex, the protagonist in this story,
proudly embraces his homosexual orientation and
lifestyle. Duke University has recently published
Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections
from the Work of Bruce Nugent (2002), edited by
Thomas Wirth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cullen, Countee, ed. Caroling Dusk: An Anthology
of Verse by Black Poets. New York: Citadel Press,
1927, 1993.
Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Watson, Stephen. The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of
African American Culture, 1920–1930. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1995.
Wilfred D. SamuelsNuñez, Elizabeth (1944– )
A native of Trinidad, Elizabeth Nuñez immigrated
to America after she completed secondary school.
She received her bachelor’s degree in English from
Marian College in Wisconsin and her master’s
and Ph.D. degrees in English from New York Uni-
versity. She is presently a City University of New
York distinguished professor of English at Med-
gar Evers College, where she designed and imple-
mented many of the colleges’ first major academic
programs. Along with JOHN OLIVER KILLENS, she
founded the National Black Writers Conference,
sponsored by the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Nuñez was also the director of the
conference from 1986 to 2000.
Nuñez is the author of four novels: When Rocks
Dance (1986), Beyond the Limbo Silence (1998),
Bruised Hibiscus (2000), and Grace (2003). Nu-
ñez’s debut novel, When Rocks Dance, is about
one woman’s desire to own a plot of land. Bruised
Hibiscus presents a smoldering tale of two Trini-
dadian women and the escalating psychological
abuse each endures after a fisherman discovers
the mutilated corpse of a white woman floating
in Freeman’s Bay. For research, Nuñez returned to
her Trinidadian birthplace to read newspaper ac-
counts of the 1954 Dalip Singh case, which was the
basis of her novel. For the author, this case epito-
mizes a troubled era in her native country, a time,
she remembers, when women felt “very vulnerable,
very at risk.” Although Grace, an urban love story,
seems to be the quietest of Nuñez’s novels, a closer
look reveals that it is presented in real time. The
slow pace of the work is true to the domestic set-
ting and the everyday challenges that couples face
in their work and other relationships.
Nuñez’s Defining Ourselves: Black Writers in
the 90s (1999) represents her perspective on blackNuñez, Elizabeth 397