The Sleeper Wakes - by Marcy Knopf-Newman (Paperback)

About the Book

This significant collection is the first definitive edition of Harlem Renaissance stories by women. These 27 stories have been virtually unavailable to readers until now. Contributors include Gwendolyn Bennett, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimke, Zora Neale Huston, Nella Larsen, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Ann Petry, and Dorothy West.

Book Synopsis

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the art and culture of the Harlem Renaissance. Yet this significant collection is the first definitive edition of Harlem Renaissance stories by women. The writers include Gwendolyn Bennett, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimké, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Dorothy West.

Published originally in periodicals such as The Crisis, Fire!!, and Opportunity, these twenty-seven stories have until now been virtually unavailable to readers. These stories are as compelling today as they were in the 1920s and 1930s. In them, we find the themes of black and white racial tension and misunderstanding, economic deprivation, passing, love across and within racial lines, and the attempt to maintain community and uplift the race.

Marcy Knopf's introduction surveys the history of the Harlem Renaissance, the periodicals and books it generated, and describes the rise to prominence of these women writers and their later fall from fame. She also includes a brief biography of each of the writers. Nellie Y. McKay's foreword analyzes the themes and concerns of the stories.

Review Quotes

A wonderful gift to Harlem Renaissance scholarship.--David Levering Lewis

I will treasure this book as we treasured each other in that extraordinary period in time that one day would be called the Harlem Renaissance.--Dorothy West

Sheds a marvelously bright light on a corner of the Harlem Renaissance too long neglected. Readers interested in that pivotal movement, in women's writing, or in African American and American literature of the 1920s, should find this an invaluable work.--Arnold Rampersad

The definitive anthology of women's literature from the Harlem Renaissance. This collection forces us to rethink this germinal period in African-American literary history, and is essential for students and libraries. --Henry Lewis Gates, Jr.

About the Author

Marcy Knopf is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati.

Nellie Y. McKay is Professor of American and Afro-American Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.