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9 - Popular Romance and Literary Undergrounds

from Part II - African American Genres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2023

By
Aneeka Ayanna Henderson
Edited by
Yogita Goyal
Yogita Goyal
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

This chapter wrestles with the contradictory power that popular romance wields in American culture. These novels both uphold heteropatriarchal norms through their fidelity to the marriage plot, but also unsettle romance tropes as a mode of resisting pernicious stereotypes about Black love and dysfunctional families and counter ubiquitous representations of Black pain. Through a close reading of work by writers such as Sister Souljah, Terry McMillan, and Beverly Jenkins, this chapter upends the claim that Black popular romance is unimaginative and does not merit serious critical analysis as well as defies the common belief that Black popular fiction is a political wasteland. As it reimagines Black popular romance as a space of political possibility with immense cultural impact, this chapter deromanticizes the book publishing industry as a site of antiracism by uncovering the numerous hurdles that Black popular romance writers must clear before they publish novels with Black love at the center.

Keywords

Black lovemarriage plotAfrican American fictionpopular romancestreet/urban literatureheteropatriarchyhappily ever after
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature , pp. 164 - 178
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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