THE WAY OF THE NEW WORLD: The Black Novel in America

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1974

Gayle's history of the African-American novel rejects Ralph Ellison's dichotomy between sociology and literature: the black novelist is a ""machine gunner in the cause of mankind."" His success is measured not in terms of form but by content alone -- he scores insofar as he fights the evils of ""White Nationalism."" Thus the minor pre-Civil War writers Brown, Webb and Delany are favorably contrasted to postwar ""Negrophobes"" like Joel Chandler Harris who pander to the stereotypes of the childlike contented slave, the darky entertainer, the subhuman brute. Gayle focuses on the Washington-Do Bois controversy (assimilation vs. nationalism), faults the Harlem Renaissance for its dependency on white sponsorship and lack of commitment to a black lifestyle, is contemptuous of the Communist/liberal attempt to co-opt the Black as martyr or ""Christ in black face."" Native Son is his model for the rebel -- the only viable vision of black humanity. Gayle dismisses Ellison, Baldwin, Cleaver and Claude Brown as propagandists in the service of white image-makers (among them Mailer, Podhoretz, Gilman, Irving Howe, Styron) and proclaims Imamu Baraka ""our Du Bois reborn in the 1970's."" His answer to Du Bois' problem of the double self -- How is one to be both Black and American? -- is pure militancy. A well-developed, pugnacious contribution toward the definition of black culture.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION