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Amiri Baraka

“A clutch of early stories from the poet, playwright, and provocateur, infused with jazz and informed by racial alienation” (Kirkus Reviews).

“Baraka was, without question, the central figure of the Black Arts Movement, and was the most important theorist of that movement’s expression of the ‘Black Aesthetic, ’ which took hold of the African American cultural imagination in earnest in the late sixties. While known primarily for his plays, poems, and criticism of black music, Baraka was also a master of the short story form, as this collection attests. Tales first appeared in 1967 and is an impressionistic and sometimes surrealistic collection of short fiction, showcasing Amiri Baraka’s great impact on African American literature of the 1950s and 1960s. Tales is a critical volume in Amiri Baraka’s oeuvre, and an important testament to his remarkable literary legacy. ” —Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The sixteen artful and nuanced stories in this reissue of Amiri Baraka’s seminal 1967 collection fall into two parts: the first nine concern themselves with the sensibility of a hip, perceptive young black man in white America. The last seven stories endeavor to place that same man within the context of his awareness of and participation in a rapidly emerging and powerfully felt negritude. They deal, it might be said, with the black man in black America. Yet these tales are not social tracts, but absolutely masterful fiction—provocative, witty, and, at times, bitter and aggressive.

Akashic Books

AkashiClassics: Renegade Reprint Series

Tales: Short Stories

Ed Bullins

“A richness of language and observation pervades this collection of short stories by a black writer about real black people” (The New York Times Book Review).

Award-winning playwright Ed Bullins received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for his play The Taking of Miss Janie, and is also renowned for such works as In the Wine Time and Clara’s Ole Man. In this collection of his early short fiction, he explores themes of loneliness and despair and the African American experience in beautifully crafted stories.

“For true students and fans of American and African American literature of the 1960s and ’70s, Ed Bullins is one of our indisputable heavyweight champs. ” —Kevin Powell, author and activist

The Hungered One: Short Stories

Essays of the 1960s by a prominent African American voice who “demands rights—not conditional favors” (The New York Times Book Review).

Amiri Baraka, also known as LeRoi Jones, was known not only as a poet, playwright, and founder of the Black Arts movement, but also as one of the most provocative voices of the civil rights era and beyond.

These pieces, which span the years from 1960 to 1965, cover subjects ranging from Cuba to Malcolm X to street protests and soul food, and are accompanied by the author’s new introduction from 2009.

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