african american authors

A memoir in which the author tells how he discovered basketball as a boy living in Pittsburgh, and discusses the significance of the game to his life and the lives of other African-Americans.

Studies the major issues that are present in Maya Angelou's autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and discusses how it reflects many of the challenges that African-Americans have to face.

Contains alphabetically arranged entries that provide career biographies of thirty-four African-American writers active between the Harlem Renaissance and 1940; each with a list of principal works and a bibliography.

Presents a biographical profile of African-American writer and storyteller Zora Neale Hurston, discussing her early life and education, her inspiration and writing style, and the renewed interest in her work due to the efforts of Alice Walker.

Relates the author's personal narrative of the time she spent in Ghana with other African American expatriates.

Poet Maya Angelou chronicles her early life, focusing on her childhood in 1930s rural Arkansas, including her rape at the age of five, her subsequent years of muteness, and the strength she gained from her grandmother and Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a respected African-American woman in her town.

Author Walter Dean Myers describes his childhood in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s, discussing his loving stepmother, his problems in school, his reasons for leaving home, and his beginnings as a writer.

Examines the life and work of the successful novelist, who became the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Biography of twentieth-century African-American author James Baldwin, discussing his childhood in Harlem, his years in Paris, and his return to the United States in 1957 to take part in the Civil Rights struggle.