Best Black writers

Long before we even heard of great contemporary writers we get amazing, touching, slice-of-life and memoirs such as Alice Walker's "To Hell With Dying", Mary Elizabeth Vroman's "See How They Run" to Kristin Hunter's "An Interesting Social Study".

Here, Hughes showcases shorts from some of his idols, Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "The Scapegoat", to people he was fortunate enough to collaborate with and/or influence; Lebert Bethune's "The Burglar", "A Summer Tragedy, " by Arna Bontemps, Ernest J. Gaines'

Here, Hughes showcases shorts from some of his idols, Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "The Scapegoat", to people he was fortunate enough to collaborate with and/or influence; Lebert Bethune's "The Burglar", "A Summer Tragedy, " by Arna Bontemps, Ernest J. Gaines' "A Long Day in November" and Ralph Ellison's"Flying Home", Zora Neale Hurston's"The Guilded Six-Bits" and James Baldwin's "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon". These and a dozen more compliment his own 1958 awesome short, "Thank You, M'am, " a litle ditty about a would-be purse snatcher, Roger, getting more than he bargained for when the rotund matronly older woman, Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, gets ahold of him one day!

This would be one of Hughes' last published works before his untimely death.

For Short Story lovers, this collection is eclectic, funny, sad and everything in between. I highly recommend Walker's heart-warming memoir for its testimony to the extended family that make us who we are-nearly as much an influence as our immediate families.