Home to Harlem

Home to Harlem

Summary

VINTAGE CLASSICS' HARLEM RENAISSANCE SERIES



Celebrating the finest works of the Harlem Renaissance, one of the most important Black arts movements in modern history.


'Why did I want to mix mahself up in a white folk's war? It ain't ever was any of black folks' affair'

When Jake Brown joins the army during the First World War, he is treated more like a slave than a soldier. After deserting his post to escape the racial violence he is facing, Jake travels back home to Harlem. But despite the distance, Jake cannot seem to escape the past and the explosive ways in which it can culminate.

Written with brutal accuracy, Home to Harlem is an extraordinary work, and was the first American bestseller by a Black writer.

'One of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance' Washington Post

About the author

Claude McKay

Claude McKay was born in Jamaica, and moved to the U.S. in 1912 to study at the Tuskgee Institute. In 1928, he published his most famous novel, Home to Harlem, which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. He also published two other novels, Banjo and Banana Bottom, as well as a collection of short stories, Gingertown, two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home and My Green Hills of Jamaica and a work of non-fiction, Harlem: Negro Metropolis. His Selected Poems was published posthumously, and in 1977 he was named the national poet of Jamaica.
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