Self-Discovery and Authority in Afro-American Narrative

by Valerie Smith

Book Overview

In this perceptive exploration of the relationship between autobiography and fiction in African-American writing, Valerie Smith argues that black writers--from the authors of nineteenth-century slave narratives to contemporary novelists--affirm and legitimize their psychological autonomy by telling the stories of their lives. Focusing on autobiographies by Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs and on the fiction of James Weldon Johnson,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674800885
• ISBN13: 9780674800885
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"