Publisher's Synopsis
When Langston Hughes died in 1967, he was revered not only as one of the foremost Afro-American writers, but also as a world-renowned artist whose poems, plays and stories had profoundly influenced writers in Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere.;This book combines with Arnold Rampersad's first volume to offer a panorama of life and culture in America and abroad during the first 70 years of this century.;Rampersad traces Hughes' life from the humiliations of 1940-41, with his career in jeopardy, to his death in 1967. This volume shows Hughes re-examining his vision of art and radicalism during World War II, when he contributed steadily to the national war effort even as he relentlessly attacked segregation in his country. It recounts his surveillance by the FBI and his hounding by right-wing forces, including Senator Joe McCarthy, who eventually forced him to testify about his radical years.
