Ethiopian Stories.

George S. Schuyler. Ethiopian Stories. Ed. Robert A. Hill. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1994, 240 pp. $42.50.

Often reviled as an anti-black agitator during the height of his distinguished career as satirist, journalist, and critic, George Schuyler and his racial politics once again come under scrunity with the publication of Ethopian Stories (1994). Robert Hill's trenchant introduction reintroduces Schuyler's long and oftentimes contentious stewardship as one of the Harlem Renaissance's most forceful writers. Hill notes that the two novellas contained in Ethiopian Stories were originally published in serial form during Schuyler's tenure with the Pittsburgh Courier. While working as editor and columnist, in addition to undertaking a Southern assignment, Schuyler published eight serialized stories in the Courier, each using Africa as its thematic center.

The first novella in the collection, "The Ethiopian Murder Mystery, as its subtitle suggests, is a tale of "love and international intrigue." While the romantic angle may be used to involve young Roger Bates, it is African liberation which serves as the heart of the story. Determined to extricate the woman he loves from seemingly airtight murder charges, the smooth-talking Bates matches wits with a plodding detective who is more interested in closing the case. Bates, though, is able to decipher the murder's more intricate subtext. Certainly, the murder of an African prince in upscale Harlem leads the principals to Schuyler's true theme: Italian fascism in Ethiopia. The single-minded battle against tyranny, oppression, and totalitarianism is one he waged most of his life. In his autobiography Black and Conservative (1966), written more than thirty years after the African tales, Schuyler recounts the battle he waged, often single-handedly, against the destructive forces of Communism and "red Uncle Toms." No wonder, then, that blacks (and the whites who are allowed to exert a malign, evil influence over them) are severely taken to task for their role in Ethiopia's subjugation.

The second novella in the collection, "Revolt in Ethiopia," is far more intricately plotted and developed. Instead of the search for a killer, the hunt involves a hidden cache of treasure which is guarded by a secret sect of towering Ethiopians. It is the lovely and graceful Princess Ettara Zunda who must find the treasure which will help purchase arms for Ethiopian freedom fighters. With the aid of a wealthy American, Dick Welland, and his valet, Bill, the trio encounter adventure after adventure in a richly detailed narrative which explores the responsibility of "Aframericans" (as Schuyler termed American blacks) to become involved in African liberation struggles. Dick Welland's initial inability to commit himself to help free Ethiopia changes after he hears the Princess's eloquent argument. He is further convinced by the history and majesty of Ethiopia herself. Once committed to the cause, he is willing to sacrifice everything, his life included, for the country he has grown to love and respect:

Here was a Negro civilization older than any other except India and China; a

civilization that had flourished before Greece and Rome, before Carthage,

yes, before Egypt.... Dick wept unashamed. What a pity that this civilization

should be destroyed by brutal Fascism. No, he resolved anew, it must not die;

not if he could prevent it. (182)

Such twin themes of racial pride and African liberation, found earlier in Schuyler's second novel, Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia (1931)--also considered the first African novel written by an African American--may have helped offset some of the anti-black charges leveled against Schuyler throughout much of his career. Indeed, many of the characters in these two novellas are drawn as either pro-black or anti-black, loyal to the cause or traitors to it. Characters wino may equivocate to some degree eventually pledge allegiance to a cause they find to be both just and right. And while love and romance are present, they become far less important as Schuyler's main issue predominates.

The force of these two stories lies in part, as Hill notes, in their testimony to Schuyler's commitment to black Americans and the acknowledgment of a racial connectedness which he felt must exist between those same Americans and Africa. But these tales must also be considered as valuable literary guides to one conservative black writer's odyssey in America.