Double-Take

With this new anthology of Harlem Renaissance literature, Patton (Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women's Fiction) and Honey (editor, Shadowed Dreams: Women's Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance), both at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, attempt to "restore and underline the importance of women's writing" and sexual orientation to the Harlem Renaissance. The balanced selection of women and men is similar to that found in Henry Louis Gates's Norton Anthology of African American Literature but the inclusion of lesser-known figures and works is aimed at focusing on the ideology of the renaissance, gay and lesbian themes, and differences in gender-based issues. Countee Cullen, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston are among the authors represented, and the selected works include essays, poetry, prose, and drama, with lyrics and visual art used as illustration. The editors also break with the tendency to define the beginning and end of the renaissance with political events by focusing on specific literary works, which allows them to broaden the period to 1916-37. Both editors have done previous research in the field of African American women's literature and include a biographical sketch of each writer to underline how their gender, class, and sexual orientation shaped their work. Necessary for all academic libraries.
 

(Library Journal) Double-Take is a thick, rich stew of an anthology. It will compel a reevaluation of our most common assumptions about the Harlem Renaissance.  - Deborah McDowell (University of Virginia) Double-Take truly is a revisionist anthology - with attention to scores of minor figures, especially women. The essays and illustrations, juxtaposed with poems and short fiction, will allow the student to appreciate the Harlem Renaissance in its multiple dimensions.  - Amritjit Singh (author of The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance)