Abstract

Negro Authors Must Eat

Not long ago a Afro-American author addressed an audience of which the author was a member. For no reason beyond the possible squeamishness of his own conscience, he apologized for certain unwholesome nuances in one of his latest works; and in doing so he uttered these three words: "Authors must eat." The author's mind drifted back to the childhood of man. He gazed upon a hairy fellow poised upon a crag, playing a lute. Unconscious of an audience, oblivious of possible audiences, he played. The present Afro-American fiction writers of Harlem fall into two general types. One type subscribes unapologetically to the sensational. The other type subscribes no less unapologetically to a solitary contemplation of a black savage dropped bodily into a white culture.