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Chapter 10 - Langston Hughes and the 1930s: From Harlem to the USSR

from Part IV - International, Black, and Radical Visions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2022

By
Cynthia Davis  and
Verner D. Mitchell
Edited by
Eve Dunbar  and
Ayesha K. Hardison
Eve Dunbar
Affiliation:
Vassar College, New York
Ayesha K. Hardison
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
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Summary

This chapter argues that the articles, poems, interviews, essays, and memoirs that emerged from Hughes’s eighteen months in the USSR reflect a distinct literary-mobility paradigm through which he critiques American race, gender, politics, justice, capitalism, and power relationships, through the rhetorical device of travel writing. Traveling to the USSR in 1932 with a group of African American writers, actors, and activists who had been invited to make a film about race in America, Hughes was eager to participate in the socialist aesthetic agenda. Despite his initial enthusiasm, Hughes soon became disillusioned with the Soviet system.

Keywords

Harlem RenaissanceCPUSAAfrican Americans in RussiaFBI harassment of African Americans
Type
Chapter
Information
African American Literature in Transition, 1930–1940 , pp. 296 - 320
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

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