Although he saw himself foremost as a poet, Langston Hughes was also an essayist, dramatist, librettist, lyricist, and fiction writer. His youth rested in the middle of the 1920's Harlem Renaissance, a period where African American writing acquired firm ground in the literary world of the United States. Besides his poetry, his other remembrances lie with his fiction and its illustration of the reality of racism, as well as his sketches of a black man called "Simple." 

Langston Hughes was born on Feb. 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri where he spent the majority of his childhood. He went to school at Central High School in Cleveland, OH from 1916-1920. His first short fiction, "Seventy-five Dollars" and "Mary Winosky" emerged in the high school Monthly magazine. Unlike his future works, these two stories revealed Hughes' idealistic and sentimental side as well as his awareness of the weight of poverty and human tragedy.

Poetry was Hughes' concentration of the 1920's. His first collection, The Weary Blues was published in 1926 followed by Fine Clothes to the Jew. In his work, he experimented with poetic meter, using the rhythms of black music. Hughes attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1929. It was here that he would rediscover short fiction. In 1926, he published four stories based on his 1923 experience as a seaman on a freighter that sailed up and down the coast of West Africa. These stories, including "The Young Glory of Him" and "Luani of the Jungles," depicted themes of sexual promiscuity, adultery, the turmoil of sexual repression, and miscegenation. Also coming from this experience was the essay, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," which encouraged young black writers to explore their racial background.

In 1928, with the encouragement of his white patron, Mrs. Charlotte Mason, Langston Hughes produced his first novel, Not Without Laughter. This would be considered one of the most affective works of the Harlem Renaissance.

Hughes' radical political activism was at its highest in the 1930's. During this time he visited Moscow and formulated his finest book of short stories, The Ways of White Folks. He also collaborated with Arna Bontemps to write the children's book Popo and Fifina. In 1934, Hughes spent several months translating short stories by Mexican writers. Unfortunately, he discovered that a market for Latin literature was not yet present in the United States. Hughes spent the remainder of the decade emphasizing his drama, including Mulatto, a play depicting miscegenation in the South.

On Feb. 13, 1943, the black-owned Chicago Defender newspaper published the introduction of Langston Hughes' character, Jesse B. Simple. Hughes' weekly column entitled "From Here to Yonder" had been in practice since 1942. The motivation behind Hughes' creation of this soon to be famous character was his desire to encourage support for the Allied forces, claiming that there was an enemy worse than segregation. In 1950, Simple Speaks His Mind, the first of four book installments, was published. It received high sales and positive reviews from both white and African American readers.

In the coming years, Langston composed two more collections of fiction entitled, Laughing to Keep from Crying (1952), and Something in Common and Other Stories (1963), along with his novel, Tambourines of Glory (1958), and two autobiographical volumes entitled The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander. He died on May 22, 1967.

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Articles About Hughes, Langston

The Harlem Renaissance, Washington, DC And the Rise of Langston Hughes

February 4, 2007

It's something of an oddity to mention writers and Washington, DC, in the same sentence; one traditionally associates the city with the federal government and policy-making. But in the years immediately following World War I, one of the most significant social and cultural movements of the 20th century, the Harlem Renaissance, received substantial support from an artistic cadre within Washington, including the young poet Langston Hughes.