The Life of Langston Hughes Vol. 2

In the second and final volume of this epic biography of black America's most original and beloved poet, Arnold Rampersad traces Hughes's life from the humiliations of 1940-41, with his career in jeopardy, to his death in 1967, by which time he was revered not only as the dean of Afro-American writers but also as a world-renowned artist whose poems, plays, and stories had profoundly influenced writers in Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. This volume shows Hughes reexamining his...
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In the second and final volume of this epic biography of black America's most original and beloved poet, Arnold Rampersad traces Hughes's life from the humiliations of 1940-41, with his career in jeopardy, to his death in 1967, by which time he was revered not only as the dean of Afro-American writers but also as a world-renowned artist whose poems, plays, and stories had profoundly influenced writers in Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. This volume shows Hughes reexamining his vision of art and radicalism during World War II, when he contributed steadily to the national war effort even as he relentlessly attacked segregation in his country, and it recounts his surveillance by the FBI and his hounding by right-wing forces, including Senator Joe McCarthy, who eventually forced him to testify about his radical years. Through all this period, Rampersad reveals, Hughes never lost sight of his greatest goal: to be an artist in words, committed to black life. Written with Rampersad's characteristic grace and meticulous attention to detail, this book combines with the first volume to offer a matchless parorama of life and culture in America and abroad during the first 70 years of this century.