Amiri Baraka

Alex Houen (University of Cambridge)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

Born 7 Oct 1934
Died 9 Jan 2014
Activity 1957-2013

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Cultural Identities

African American

Activities

Primary

Cultural Theorist/ Critic
Essayist
Playwright / Dramatist
Poet
Polemicist
Story-writer

Other

Autobiographer
Novelist
Political writer
Revolutionary, Activist
Soldier

Resources

Baraka's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Born Everett LeRoy Jones on 7 October 1934 in Newark, New Jersey, Amiri Baraka was soon to understand there the significance of belonging to a working-class African American family. As he comments in his

Autobiography

(1984), “the color code of class distinction taught me early what America was” (p. 22). His father, Coyette “Coyt” LeRoy Jones, had repeatedly moved with his family to escape racism before settling in Newark, where he was to work for many years as a clerk in the Post Office. Baraka’s mother, Anna Lois Jones, worked in various sweatshops in Newark before taking an administrative job in the Office of Dependency Benefits after the outbreak of World War II. Despite the prevalence of poverty and racial tensions in Baraka’s neighbourhood—he experienced his first race…

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3711 words

Citation: Houen, Alex. "Amiri Baraka". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=247, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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