Emma Lou Morgan's skin is black--"too black," as the narrator writes in the beginning of The Blacker of the Berry. Tired of the scorn and contempt of her classmates, teachers, friends, and even family, she leaves her hometown of Boise, Idaho, traveling first to Los Angeles and then to Harlem, New York in search of a community to which she can belong. In Harlem, Emma Lou finds an exciting, vibrant scene of nightclubs and dance halls and parties and love affairs... but there's no escaping the shame she feels about the darkness of her skin.
Written by an overlooked author of the Harlem Renaissance, who was described by Langston Hughes as "a strangely brilliant black boy, who had read everything, and whose critical mind could find something wrong with everything he read," The Blacker the Berry is a vivid and disturbing portrait of a young woman who has been rejected by her own race, and a still-relevant reflection on the role that skin color plays in American society.
For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The groundbreaking Harlem Renaissance novel about prejudice within the black community
Emma Lou Morgan's skin is black. So black that it's a source of shame to her not only among the largely white community of her hometown of Boise, Idaho, but also among her lighter-skinned family and friends. Seeking a community where she will be accepted, she leaves home at age eighteen, traveling first to Los Angeles and then to New York City, where in the Harlem of the 1920s she finds a vibrant scene of nightclubs and dance halls and parties and love affairs ... and, still, rejection by her own race.
One of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance, and the first novel to openly address prejudice among black Americans and the issue of colorism, The Blacker the Berry . . . is a book of undiminished power about the invidious role of skin color in American society.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Author Biography:
Wallace Thurman (1902-1934), a novelist, essayist, editor, and playwright of the Harlem Renaissance, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and moved to Harlem in 1925. In 1926 he became the editor of the socialist journal The Messenger, where he published the early stories of Langston Hughes. He left The Messenger later that year to co-found the literary magazine Fire!! along with Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, among others. The Blacker the Berry . . . , his first novel, was published in 1929; he wrote two other novels,Infants of the SpringandThe Interne, and a play,Harlem.
Allyson Hobbs(introduction) is an associate professor in the department of history and the director of African and African American studies at Stanford. Herfirst book,A Chosen Exile- A History of Racial Passing in American Life, won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award for best first book in American history and the Lawrence Levine Award for best book in American cultural history, bothfrom the Organization of American Historians. Hobbs is aDistinguished Lecturerfor theOrganization of American Historians and a contributor to newyorker.com andThe New York Times Book Review.
