Paul Laurence Dunbar
The definitive biography of a pivotal figure in American literary history.
“A book that pulls you along like an open bag of potato chips; for the first 100 or so pages, I could barely put it down.”—John McWhorter, New York Times
“A pioneering Black poet battles racism and his inner demons in this incisive biography. . . . Jarrett situates his analysis of Dunbar’s ambitious, sometimes prickly intellect innan insightful, vividly written portrait of Black political and literary culture at the turn of the 20th century, and probes his subject’s alcoholism, gambling, and violent tendencies. The result is a fascinating exploration of Black creativity wrestling with social constraints and personal failings.”– “Publishers Weekly”
Description
A major poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was one of the first African American writers to garner international recognition in the wake of emancipation. In this definitive biography, the first full-scale life of Dunbar in half a century, Gene Andrew Jarrett offers a revelatory account of a writer whose Gilded Age celebrity as the “poet laureate of his race” hid the private struggles of a man who, in the words of his famous poem, felt like a “caged bird” that sings.
