LAUGHING TO KEEP FROM CRYING

by Langston Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A collection of piquant, sweeter than sugar, more sour than green apples, sketches about Negroes from Harlem to Hong Kong and back to Johannesburg. A well known Negro poet and writer, Langston Hughes is endowed with a wit that is as strong and clear as his feeling and knowledge of Negroes and the peculiar yet common situations in which they find themselves. He knows the confusion that can arise, change behaviour and ideas in the twinkling of an eye when ""colored"" people pass for white, then recant and say they are colored, only to re-recant later and say they are really white. He knows the humor of the brawl that turns into friendship between a north-of-the-Missouri colored man and a Kentucky colonel when they meet in a bar in Hong Kong. All barbed, all short, these stories go beyond tolerance, beyond the false pride of being a Negro, beyond the purposeful ignoring of color and culture traits that is so often the educated man's invisible but weighty burden. Under the skillful results of his observations, situations where Negro and white are natural with one another come sharply into focus- there being no set pattern but as in all life- a fortuitous and happy occasion brought about by being happy.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1952

Categories: FICTION