Fingering the Jagged Grain: Tradition and Form in Recent Black Fiction - Paperback

by Keith E. Byerman (Author)

In Fingering the Jagged Grain, Keith E. Byerman discusses how black writers such as Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, and Ernest Gaines have moved away from the ideological rigidity of the black arts movement that arose in the 1960s to create a more expressive, imaginative, and artistic fiction inspired by the example of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Combining a strong concern for technique and craftsmanship with elements of African American heritage including jazz, blues, spirituals, cautionary tales, and voodoo, these writers have created a vital fiction that celebrates the strength and resilience of the black American voice as it recounts the painful details and brutal episodes of black experience.

Author Biography

KEITH E. BYERMAN is a professor of English at Indiana State University. He is the author or editor of six previous books, including Remembering the Past in Contemporary African American Fiction.