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The essential Harlem Renaissance reads

Book of the Week: Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay

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Claude McKay’s Romance in Marseille shows how human truths have been erased from history

Home to Harlem

CLAUDE McKAY was born in Jamaica, and moved to the U.S. in 1912 to study at the Tuskgee Institute. In 1928, he published his most famous novel, Home to Harlem, which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. His Selected Poems was published posthumously, and in 1977 he was named the national poet of Jamaica.

VINTAGE CLASSICS' HARLEM RENAISSANCE SERIES 
 
 Celebrating the finest works of the Harlem Renaissance, one of the most important Black arts movements in modern history. 
 
'Why did I want to mix mahself up in a white folk's war? It ain't ever was any of black folks' affair' 
 
When Jake Brown joins the army during the First World War, he is treated more like a slave than a soldier. After deserting his post to escape the racial violence he is facing, Jake travels back home to Harlem. But despite the distance, Jake cannot seem to escape the past and the explosive ways in which it can culminate. 
 
Written with brutal accuracy, Home to Harlem is an extraordinary work, and was the first American bestseller by a Black writer. 
 
 'One of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance' Washington Post

Romance in Marseille

Claude McKay's poetry was one of the great forces in bringing about what is often called the 'Negro Literary Renaissance'

I loved Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille, so witty and so precise, a little instrument for imagining another kind of modernist history

Claude McKay was born in Jamaica, and moved to the U.S. in 1912 to study at the Tuskgee Institute. In 1928, he published his most famous novel, Home to Harlem, which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. He also published two other novels, Banjo and Banana Bottom, as well as a collection of short stories, Gingertown, two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home and My Green Hills of Jamaica and a work of non-fiction, Harlem: Negro Metropolis. His Selected Poems was published posthumously, and in 1977 he was named the national poet of Jamaica.

While stowed away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked away in an icy-cold closet, resulting in the loss of his frostbitten legs. When his successful lawsuit against the shipping company brings big bucks, Lafala returns to Marseille to resume his affair with Aslima, a Moroccan prostitute. With its scenes of black bodies seeking pleasure and fighting for freedom even when stolen, shipped, and sold for parts, Romance in Marseille explores the heritage of slavery amid a predatory modern economy.

Claude McKay

Belinda Edmondson

Claude McKay’s first novel, Home to Harlem, was published in 1928 during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. McKay portrays Harlem post-WWI, through Jake, an African American longshoreman who deserts the U.S. army and returns to his home in Harlem, and Ray, a Haitian intellectual expatriate. With his use of dialect, McKay portrays these men and other working-class characters who try to stay afloat in a complex world of isolation, racial discrimination, and excitement drawn from Harlem’s jazz nightlife. Home to Harlem sparked controversy among Black middle-class critics, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, who considered it reductive and stereotypical, while other critics such as Langston Hughes embraced it for its frankness and for the relevance of McKay’s reflections on the Black working-class experience and the social and racial inequalities of the day. This debate within the Harlem Renaissance literary world and curiosity about Harlem from white readers drove Home to Harlem to become the first commercial bestseller by an African American novelist.

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