A01=Countee Cullen
A32=Mint Editions
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Author_Countee Cullen
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DC
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
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Language_English
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Price_€10 to €20
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Product details
- ISBN 9781513209203
- Dimensions: 127 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 23 Sep 2021
- Publisher: Mint Editions
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was an American poet novelist and playwright. In his youth Cullen moved frequently with his mother Elizabeth Thomas Lucas before settling in Harlem at the age of nine where he was raised by his grandmother Amanda Porter. In 1917 following her death he was adopted by Reverend Frederick A. Cullen of Salem Methodist Episcopal Church who led the largest congregation in Harlem and would later become president of the local NAACP chapter. He excelled in high school graduating with honors to enroll at NYU where he gained a reputation as a prize-winning poet whose works appeared in Harpers Crisis and Poetry. In 1925 he went to Harvard for a masters in English just as his first collection Color (1925) was published to popular and critical acclaim. He graduated in 1926 after which he published two more collectionsThe Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927) and Copper Sun (1927)cementing his reputation as a leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen was known for his friendly and professional associations with such figures as Duke Ellington Langston Hughes and Alain Locke defining artists and intellectuals of their generation. Throughout his life Cullen struggled with his sexuality and shy demeanor pursuing relationships with men and women alike. He received a 1928 Guggenheim Fellowship using it to write The Black Christ and Other Poems a controversial collection for its comparison of the crucifixion to the lynching of black Americans. Despite the backlash he continued to write and publish for the next two decades turning to plays and childrens fiction at the end of his career and at one point mentoring a young James Baldwin. His translation of Euripides tragedy Medea is considered the first of its kind by a black American writer. Often overshadowed by his more outspoken peers Cullens legacy is that of a master of traditional poetic forms who used his voice and tremendous intellect to uplift and examine the lives of all African Americans.
