[Review of] Rene Philombe. Tales from Cameroon

Tales from Cameroon is Richard Bjornson\u27s translation of two collections of allegories, anecdotes, and short stories by the Cameroonian writer Rene Philombe. Originally composed in French over a twenty year period between the late 1950s and the late 1970s, these fifteen works reveal the human greed, jealousy, and blindness to its own destructive behavior which Philombe believes divides Cameroonians among themselves

[Review of] Ken Goodwin. Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets

Understanding African Poetry is a valuable asset to anyone interested in African anglophone poetry. Goodwin offers textual analysis, evaluation, and supplementary contextual information on each of the ten poets he chose to discuss. Much of the analysis shows a keen insight and the contextual commentary is quite informative. However, Goodwin\u27s evaluation reflects his bias towards British and white American concepts of what constitutes good poetry

A Response to Our Own Dogs

In contemporary American Indian songs and stories the Iroquois, Shawnee, and Lakota all voice a rueful hindsight over the hereditary Great Mistake, or the friendship and kindness which their naive, trusting ancestors extended to the pilgrims on the Mayflower

[Review of] Langston Hughes. The Big Sea: An Autobiography

In the last ten years a number of critical studies on the Harlem Renaissance have been published, and these in turn have sparked a revival of interest in the cultural, political, and social activities that took place during the ten-year period in Afroamerican history between 1919 and 1929. There is a renewed interest in the life and writings of Renaissance figures such as Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes. Hence many of their autobiographies, first published in the 1930s and 1940s, are being reissued in response to the demand for more information on the era when the Negro was in vogue. This latest edition of Hughes\u27s first autobiography The Big Sea is part of this larger revival and follows very closely behind the reprint of his contemporary Zora Neale Hurston\u27s Dust Tracks on a Road (University of Illinois Press, 1986)

Depictions of Elderly Blacks in American Literature

Portraits of elderly Afroamerican men and women abound in American literature and vary from stories which present a mythic primordial character who symbolizes emotional stability, experiential wisdom and a community\u27s cultural and historical heritage, to works in slice-of-life realistic style which dramatize the social and psychological conditions of aged blacks. Included in this second category are works which show the confrontation between old and new social standards. Coupled with this range of portraits is a variety of attitudes toward elderly blacks

[Review of] Philip Butcher, ed. The Minority Presence in American Literature: 1600-1900, Vols. I and II

The Minority Presence in American Literature: 1600-1900, volumes I and II, is the first publication of the Morgan State University Series in Afroamerican Studies. The series is intended to provide a basis for examining the cultural, religious and social experiences of Afroamericans. Each title in the series is intended to serve as a guide, outline, or syllabus for college courses in Afroamerican studies, American ethnic studies, history and culture, American literature, and American studies. In keeping with these aims, Philip Butcher has compiled two anthologies of major and minor American writings that can be used as readers and course guides. The selections explore the experiences of Native Americans, Afroamericans, European and Chinese immigrants in the New World between the seventeenth and early twentieth centuries

Critique [of WHAT IS ETHNIC PRIDE? A poem]

Judith Lundin\u27s poem successfully conveys both the elusive nature of defining ethnic pride and the certainty that it exists

Critique [of Griggs and Corrothers: Historical Reality and Black Fiction]

James Payne\u27s thoughtful and carefully documented essay stresses the importance of evaluating ethnic American, specifically Afroamerican, fiction within its historical context. The historical information he provides in his essay concerning the Afroamerican response to the Spanish-American War and to America\u27s paranoia of a supposed Yellow Peril does indeed shed light on how Griggs and Corrothers each imaginatively re-invested a specific social reality with an Afroamerican revolutionary furor-a rage which ironically had the best interest of the country at heart