More than anything else, the monumental anthologies they edited - The Book of Negro Folklore, Poetry of the Negro, Best Short Stories by Negro Writers, Great Slave Narratives - symbolize the achievements of these literary giants for in these books they kept the records of a tradition, preserving its roots, assuring its continuity.īoth Hughes and Bontemps were born in 1902, and both began their careers by winning prizes in the famous Crisis writing contests sponsored by the NAACP in the 1920s. For half a century these two writers put out the work that has ensured the growth and systematic development of an Afro-American literary tradition. IN THE PERSONAL library of any Afro-American scholar the combined works of Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps would take up a shelf at least six feet long.
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