D. H. Lawrence and Black Modernism

The first book-length study of D. H. Lawrence and Black writers, Laura Ryan examines connections between Lawrence and four key Black and mixed-race modernist writers – Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, and Zora Neale Hurston – positioning all five as co-creators of modernism.

Ryan investigates both the responses of these writers to Lawrence’s writing and the ways in which Black modernist writers were frequently engaging in their work with the same themes, problems and questions as the English author. Their concerns converge with Lawrence’s, for example, on themes and issues including primitivism, individualism, religion, vitalism, and sexuality, all while critiquing modernity, seeking new modes of expression, and forging forward to find new identities. In doing this, this book not only sheds new light on these particular writers; it pushes toward new ways of figuring literary connectedness more widely, and across barriers of race and nation.