Known to refer to herself on occasion as "Zora, Queen of the Niggerati," Zora Neale Hurston cut a provocative figure during the Harlem Renaissance, both in her person and in her writing. As folklorist, teacher, anthropologist, and author, Hurston was a champion of black heritage. She visited Haiti an

African american fiction, Feminist, Political, Southern gothic, Spiritual, Tribal, Women's literature

America's premier poet of twentieth-century theater dominated the stage for almost 20 years. Despite his fall into ignominy and artistic disfavor in the final years of his career, Tennessee Williams is still considered one of the world's finest dramatists. Together with Arthur Miller, Williams pionee

Agitated, Anxiety, Death, Homoerotic, Melancholy, Neurotic, Off-broadway, Post-war theater, Sexy, Southern gothic

In his calloused hands, with dirt under his fingernails, he carried the same torch that Wordsworth and Coleridge had used to set poetry aflame. Raymond Carver employed "the language really used by men" to tell the story of the damaged white American. Broken hearts populate Carver's literary country;

Dark, Distorted, Rough, Smoky, Southern gothic, Spare, Super-realism

Toni Morrison, arguably the most famous living African American author, was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931 in Ohio. As a child, she was an avid and precocious reader, and her family of masterful storytellers raised her on a steady diet of tales and legends. She studied literature at Howard and Co

African american fiction, Dense, Feminine, Layered, Melancholy, Pathos, Religious, Southern gothic, Spectral, Women's literature