The Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1940, vol. 3, Black Writers Interpret the Harlem Renaissance.

Cary 0. Wintz, ed. The Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1940. Vol. 3--Black Writers Interpret the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Garland, 1996. 488 pp. $35.00.

Any reader who is interested in the creative efforts of black writers during the Harlem Renaissance will find Cary Wintz's collection of reprinted articles, excerpts, and illustrations from volume 3 of the series enlightening. The reader recognizes a new attitude from the beginning of the reprints from FIRE!! (November 1926) and Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life (November 1928), journals edited by Wallace Thurman. Several exaggerated illustrations and frank stories about such topics as prostitution and free sex perhaps reveal why these premier issues were discontinued. Even though these quarterlies were devoted to the younger black artists, as the title FIRE!! suggests and the Foreword warns, some of the articles and illustrations flamed and burned. Harlem, a bit more appealing than FIRE!!, fizzled as well, no doubt due in large part to its critical attack on W. E. B. Du Bois's determination to keep black publications honorable in content, style, and language. While the small print and marked up pages may be chal lenging to read, historians and scholars will be able to read facsimiles of these original journals, which also include short stories, poetry, and essays by such writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Alain Locke.

The second part of the book, which is the largest section, consists of complete editorial columns from Opportunity by such well-known writers as Gwendolyn Bennett, whose column "The Ebony Flute" was first published in August 1926; Countee Cullen's "The Dark Tower," first published in December 1926; and Sterling A. Brown's "The Literary Scene: Chronicle and Comment," which began in January 1931 and continued for five years. Each columnist focuses on his or her interest in new books, art, new talent, deaths, conferences on the American Negro, or facts concerning all phases of black life in America, such as religion, work, wages, business, politics, education, health, the press, and the outlook of Negro youth. For instance, Cullen admonishes non-reading blacks about not buying books, and he criticizes Fannie Hurst's Imitation of Life so harshly that she promptly sent back a fiery response defending her creation. These sixty or more editorials are informative and entertaining because they personalize the literar y development of the poets, dramatists, novelists, and essayists of the Harlem Renaissance. Some of the intriguing titles include "John Brown: 'God's Angry Man,' " "Satire of Imperialism," and "Imitation of Life: Once a Pancake."

The third section of this volume, which is of a higher visual quality, consists of interpretations of the Harlem Renaissance from excerpts of autobiographical and historical sketches by writers such as Langston Hughes, whose excerpt from The Big Sea discusses the public's response to his collection of poems Fine Clothes to the Jew, which received accolades from literary magazines and the white press but harsh criticism from black critics. In an excerpt from A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White, the author describes how criticism of his novel The Fire in the Flint made the book more popular than it would have been on its own merit. It was one of the books burned in Germany after Hitler seized control. Selections from A Long Way From Home and Harlem: Negro Metropolis describe Harlem not as the Negro Capital of the nation but as the Negro Capital of the world. McKay mentions the many changes in Harlem, such as the popular, flourishing underground industry of playing the numbers. He also describ es the conflicts between the educated West Indian and the uneducated, and between educated American blacks and West Indians; and he presents a detailed account of Marcus Garvey's rise and fall. In a selection from Dust Tracks on a Road, Zora Neale Hurston describes her research techniques so vividly that the reader feels a part of the journey as she recalls collecting numerous work songs, blues, and spirituals. These writers make Harlem come alive with numerous stories about the participants. One story of particular interest concerns Wallace Thurman's pessimism about the future of Negro literature. He felt that the "Negro Vogue" made black writers too conscious of themselves, too spoiled and too prone to drink more and more gin. Thus, it is no surprise that he called the Harlem literati the "niggerati," with which Langston Hughes associates Zora Neale Hurston because of her ability to entertain whites, who often paid her to sit and "act colored." Such stories make readers feel as if they are participants in t he movement as well.

The volume ironically begins and ends with Wallace Thurman, whose novel Infants of the Spring fared better than his literary journals FIRE!! and Harlem because it was the only contemporaneous novel by a black writer about this period, even though Thurman ridicules some of the major participants in the Harlem Renaissance.

This volume is a must read for scholars, historians, and persons who really want to know the participants of the Harlem Renaissance. The format is not attractive, but the content is excellent, conveying first-hand information from Harlem Renaissance participants themselves.