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Books by Arna Bontemps
God Sends Sunday: Novel /
Black Thunder, Gabriel's Revolt: Virginia, 1800 /
Anyplace But Here /
The Harlem Renaissance Remembered
The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949
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Bontemps, American Negro Poetry
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Arna
Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967
The Old South;: "A summer tragedy" and other stories of
the thirties /
The Story of the Jubilee Singers /
Great Slave Narratives
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Arna
Wendell Bontemps (1902-1973) -- born in Alexandria,
Louisiana, the son of Creole parents -- was one of the more prolific writers of the
Harlem Renaissance. He was the author of over 25 books of
poetry, history, biography, fiction and anthologies. Bontemps
was a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Bontemps served as
head librarian at Fisk University from 1969 to 1972. He was also
curator of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro
Arts and Letters at Yale University.
In 1923, Bontemps
received his B.A. from Pacific Union College in Angwin. In 1924,
his poetry appeared in Crisis
magazine, the NACCP periodical edited by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. |
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In 1926 Golgotha
Is a Mountain won the Alexander Pushkin Award and in 1927 Nocturne
at Bethesda achieved first honors in the Crisis poetry contest.
Personals, a collection of poetry was published in 1963.
Bontemps then turned to
prose. In the decade of the thirties, he wrote three acclaimed novels
God Sends Sunday (1931);
Black Thunder (1936); and Drums at
Dusk (1939). Frustrated in his ability to reach his own generation
Bontemps to literature for children and young graders. In 1937 he
published the
Sad-Faced Boy; and others for young audience
included
We Have Tomorrow (1945) Slappy Hopper (1946) and
Story
of the Negro (1948).
Bontemps was involved in the publication of at least three
anthologies:
Golden Slippers: An
Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers (1941); with
Langston Hughes,
The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949
(1949);
and
Bontemps, American Negro Poetry
(1963 & 1974 rev.).
Bontemps was gracious enough to include Christian's poems in all his
anthologies.
Bontemps' beautiful short story "A Summer
Tragedy"
is found often in anthologies. It is indeed a treat. His poems "A
Black Man Thinks of Reaping," "Southern
Mansion," and
"Nocturne at Bethesda" are often anthologized. But such poems
as "My Heart Has Known Its Winter" and "Day
Breakers" are also found in anthologies.
Early in his career Bontemps had wanted to get a Ph.D. in English but
with his marriage in 1926 and the coming of six children he had to work.
He taught for awhile at an Alabama junior college. With the coming of
the Depression he worked for the Illinois WPA and supervised and
assisted in the writing of a history of the Negro in Illinois. In 1943
he completed a degree in library science and served as librarian at Fisk
University and developed an archive of African American
cultural materials that is a major resource for study in this field. *
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Arna
Bontemps
Centennial
Celebration
The
Arna Bontemps African American Museum and Cultural Arts Center
will kick-off the Arna Bontemps Centennial Celebration on
Friday, October 11 and Saturday, October 12, 2002. This
multicultural festival will commemorate the 100th birthday of
Alexandria's native son, Harlem Renaissance writer and scholar,
Arna Wendell Bontemps.
The Arna Bontemps Centennial Celebration will include a book
fair, a visual arts exhibit, a film screening, musical
performances, theatrical presentations, a birthday party and
reception, readings by famous contemporary writers and panel
discussions assessing the legacy of Arna Bontemps. These events
will take place in a number of venues in Alexandria including
the Alexandria Riverfront Center, the Hotel Bentley, the
Alexandria Museum of Art and the Arna Bontemps African American
Museum and Cultural Arts Center.
Among the writers who have agreed to participate is Lalita
Tademy, author of
Cane River, a novel that tells the story of
four generations of African-American women from a Louisiana
community [and
Red River].. This award-winning novel was an Oprah Book Club
selection. Also featured during the celebration will be such
nationally acclaimed Louisiana writers as Brenda Marie Osbey,
Pinkie Gordon Lane and Kalamu ya Salaam.
In addition, award-winning biographer Dr. Arnold Rampersad of
Stanford University will also make a keynote presentation on the
life and work of Arna Bontemps. Other celebration highlights
will include reminiscences by the late writer's son, Dr. Arna
Alexander Bontemps, professor of history at Arizona State
University, performances by "The Bontempian Big Band",
the Arna Bontemps Junior Writers Guild, Kedrick Holiday and
Frank Jackson of Pineville High School and Dr. and Mrs. Randall
Bernhard.
The Centennial Celebration will begin on Friday, October 11,
with an opening ceremony at the Alexandria Riverfront Center.
During this ceremony, Sunday, October 13, 2002 will be
proclaimed Arna Bontemps Centennial Day in the Alexandria and
Pineville area.
The Centennial Celebration is free and open to the public. If
you would like additional information please contact LaRunda
Hobbs or Joan Victorian at 318-473-4692 or visit our website, www.arnabontempsmuseum.com
.
Arna
Bontemps African American Museum
1327 Third Street
Alexandria, LA 71301
www.arnabontempsmuseum.com *
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Drums at Dusk
By Arna
Bontemps
A story of
love, violence, and race set at the outbreak of
the Haitian Revolution in 1791, African American
writer Arna Bontemps's Drums at Dusk immerses
readers in the opulent and brutal--yet also very
fragile--society of France's richest colony,
Saint Domingue.
First
published in 1939, this novel explores the
complex web of tensions connecting wealthy
plantation owners, poor whites, free people of
color, and the slaves who stunned the colony and
the globe by uniting in a carefully planned
uprising.
The novel's
hero, Diron Desautels, a white Creole born in
Saint Domingue who belongs to the French
antislavery group Société des Amis des Noirs,
attempts to spread his message of "liberty,
equality, fraternity" in a world fraught with
conflict. |
Imaginatively inhabiting a wide spectrum
of Haitian voices, including those of white indentured
servants, female slaves, and Toussaint L'Ouverture, who
later emerged as the revolution's best-known hero,
Bontemps's work reflects not only the intricacies of Haitian
society on the eve of the revolution, but also a black
artist's vision of Haiti in the twentieth century, during
the U.S. Marines' occupation and at the brink of war in
Europe. A new introduction by Michael P. Bibler and Jessica
Adams reveals how Drums at Dusk--even seventy years after
its original publication--contributes to contemporary
studies of the American South as part of the larger
plantation region of the Caribbean, and inspires a
reevaluation of assumptions about revolution, race, and
nationalism.
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Ancient African Nations
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 27 May 2010 |
