Langston Hughes called himself "the world's worst letter writer," though according to the introduction of Selected Letters of Langston Hughes, he wrote enough of them to fill "almost 20 large volumes." Like many famous authors, he was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of correspondence. Letters stacked his tables, slid over his bed and commandeered his sock drawer.
Literary scholars Arnold Rampersad (The Life of Langston Hughes), David Roessel (In Byron's Shadow) and Christa Fratantoro have chosen a representative sample of Hughes' letters as "an epistolary companion to the life story Hughes tells in his autobiographical works." They are grouped in sections by decade, each with a concise biographical introduction. Here is bold, generous, open-minded Langston Hughes, from age 19 to 65, achieving spectacular literary success despite endless obstacles and setbacks. He is known for his part in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, but that was one stage in his long and staggeringly prolific career.
Celebrities like Countee Cullen, Carl Van Vechten, Zora Neale Hurston and Amiri Baraka appear throughout the collection. There are a handful of love letters and many intimate ones to friends, but business, leftist politics and shoptalk dominate. Hughes is charming, funny, passionate in his loves and his outrages, but always diplomatic and always serious about work. His younger letters show some insecurity, but it never slows him for long. He turns out groundbreaking work in nearly every literary form, pursues new relationships throughout his life and travels the world, charging through life with extraordinary confidence and optimism. --Sara Catterall