Hip-Hop fiction drawing more readers to black lit

[TonyB06]

Hip-hop fiction drawing more readers to black lit

By Laura T. Ryan
Newhouse News Service

In the 1920s and '30s, the Harlem Renaissance set off an explosion of creativity in arts and culture among African Americans, introducing readers to such writers as James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes. Decades later, the Black Arts Movement of the 1970s galvanized a new generation of writers - including Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni - to organize poetry readings, create literary magazines and launch small presses.

And now, another seismic shift.

In recent years, African-American literature has logged notable sales increases. The growth cuts across nearly every genre in fiction, from science fiction/fantasy and mystery/horror to romance and erotica to a new category known as hip-hop or urban fiction.

"There's definitely a publishing boom going on," says Gwendolyn Pough, who is on the faculty of the women's studies and writing programs at Syracuse University and author of "Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere."

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