The Sexual Mountain and Black Woman Writers
Calvin C Hernton is the author of Sex and Racism in America. He argues that black men, who dominate the world of black literature, have downplayed the contributions of black women.
This controversial reappraisal of contemporary black writing opens with a chapter on Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Hernton provocatively interprets this as a slave narrative. Arguing that “superstar” writers like Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright have portrayed black women as nagging bitches or mammy figures.
Their work is contrasted with the more sympathetic, realistic portrayals of women by James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. He also discusses Anny Petry’s graphics protest novel The Street, which he views as the pivotal work of black women’s writing.
He also examines the consciousness-raising poetry of Thulani Davis, Toi Derricotte, Rita Dove, Brenda Marie Osbey and others.
