Dorothy West

Dorothy West

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Dorothy West - (1901 - 1998) West was active in the Harlem Renaissance movement as a teenager and was the last surviving member of the period. West, best known for her short stories, debuted with The Living Is Easy in 1948.

The following Biography excerpted from AFAMNet:

In 1926, shortly after she graduated from Girls' Latin School in Boston, West tied for second prize in a short story contest with Zora Neale Hurston.
Her first novel, ``The Living Is Easy,'' about the black middle class in Boston, came out in 1948.

Hurston befriended West and brought her to New York, where she was adopted by the more established writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Richard Wright and Langston Hughes.

``We didn't know it was the Harlem Renaissance, because we were all young and all poor,'' West told The Associated Press in 1995. ``We had no jobs to speak of, and we had rent parties'' to raise rent money.

West published her second novel, ``The Wedding,'' at the age of 88, nearly 50 years after her first in 1926. It was so successful that Doubleday quickly brought out a collection of her short stories and reminiscences, ``The Richer, The Poorer.''

richer poor. The Richer, the Poorer: Stories, Sketches, & Reminiscences
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On the heels of the bestseller success of The Wedding, Dorothy West, the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, presents a collection of essays and stories which explores both the realism of everyday life and the fantastical, extraordinary circumstances of one woman's life in a mythic time. "An intimate glimpse of both the virtures and the vices of the African-American middle class."--New York Times Book Review.

Review from Publisher's Weekly :
Drawing on a career spanning almost 70 years, this selection of fiction and essays provides an overview of the work of one of the enduring figures of the Harlem Renaissance. (July) -Publisher's Weekly

Review from Library Journal :
True, West just made waves with her second novel, The Wedding (LJ 12/94)-published 46 years after she debuted with The Living Is Easy-but she is best known for her short stories. This last living member of the Harlem Renaissance here collects all her classic short works and augments them with some autobiographical sketches. -Library Journal

From the Publisher:
On the heels of the bestseller success of her novel The Wedding, Dorothy West, the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, presents a collection of essays and stories that explore both the realism of everyday life, and the fantastical, extraordinary circumstances of one woman's life in a mythic time. Traversing the universal themes and conflicts between poverty and prosperity, men and women, and young and old, and compiling writing that spans almost seventy years, The Richer, The Poorer not only affords an unparalleled window into the African-American middle class, but also delves into the richness of experience of "one of the finest writers produced in this country during the Roaring Twenties" (Book Page).

"West writes like a social historian, capturing significant moments that seem to alter lives forever or change nothing at all."--Los Angeles Times

"Unforced perfection . . . beautifully cadenced. West has shown the power of what is left unspoken."--Chicago Tribune

"Dorothy West is an epic storyteller."--Quarterly Black Review of Books

thewedding.bmp (15878 bytes) The Wedding
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The first novel in 45 years from famed African American author Dorothy West, the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, The Wedding is a wise and heartfelt story about the shackles of race and class we all wear--and the price we pay to break them.

From the Publisher:
On the island of Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s there exists a proud, insular, nearly unassailable community known as the Oval, made up of the best and brightest of New York's and Boston's black bourgeoisie. Dr. Clark Coles and his wife Corinne, pillars of this community, are mortified that their youngest daughter Shelby is set on marrying Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician from New York. Equally alarmed is Lute McNeil, a successful black furniture maker from Boston who is new to Oak Bluffs and desperate for social acceptance. Lute has fallen in love with Shelby Coles, or at least the way of life she represents, and he will stop at nothing to pull her away from Meade. As the day of the wedding approaches, the tension surrounding Shelby, Lute, and Meade builds, climaxing in a single tragic act that will forever change the lives of three American families. The Wedding is a wise and heartfelt novel about the shackles of race and class we all wear and the price we pay to break them. It is also an unforgettable history of the rise of the black middle class, written by a woman who lived it. This wise, heartfelt tale marks Dorothy West's first novel in over four decades.

The Richer, the Poorer: Stories, Sketches, & Reminiscences Paperback (Click for more information about this book)

The Living Is Easy Paperback
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Mariage Paperback
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Related Links

A tribute by E. Ethelbert Miller
http://www.pw.org/mag/West.htm - (An Excerpt Below}
"Novelist, short story writer, editor, and journalist Dorothy West died August 16, 1998, at the age of 91. Her death was mourned by many as the passing of the last living member of the Harlem Renaissance, but that extraordinary outburst of African-American artistry only marked the beginning of her career. West continued to write for another seven decades, and her essays and fiction attest to the fact that she was a writer who traveled the distance, exploring with dignity, insight, and elegance the important issues of race, color, and class within the African-American community. "

AFAMNet Biography
http://www.afamnet.aa.psiweb.com/NationalPage/frontpage/081998_renaissance.htm

QBR Review of The Richer, the and Poorer
http://www.bookwire.com/QBR/Fiction/read.Review$899