A Companion to African American Literature

A master archivist and historian of African American literature, Gene Jarrett has assembled a compelling new collection of essays for this necessary addition to the study of African American writing and thought. The volume offers a comprehensive survey of the African American canon, but also goes in new directions, giving fresh emphasis to the earliest writing of African Americans as well as to the exciting field of Latino/-a writing in the African Diaspora. This is a field-defining collection.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University

“A Companion to African American Literature is a pathbreaking collection that will revolutionize the study of African American literature and literary culture. Written by leading established and emerging scholars in the field, the essays both provide a comprehensive overview of African American literary trends and preoccupations and challenge our conventional understanding of racial and national identities, literary genres, and intertextual influences. Accessible yet scholarly, this volume will be of enormous value to scholars, students, and general readers.”—Valerie Smith, Princeton University

“Presenting a comprehensive overview of the field from the 20th cen-tury to the present, A Companion to African American Literature, ed. Gene Andrew Jarrett (Wiley-Blackwell), provides readers with a fairly comprehensive overview of one of America’s richest literary traditions.”  (American Literary Scholarship, 2012)