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1 results

  • 9 - Popular Romance and Literary Undergrounds

  • from Part II - African American Genres
  • Edited by Yogita Goyal, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
    Published online:
    14 December 2023
    Print publication:
    21 December 2023, pp 164-178

  • 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.