![]() ![]() ![]() Why on earth would a black man write about what white people think about black people? It may seem an unfortunate premise considering that there are already plenty of published books written about what white folks think of black folks, and even more unpublished weighty opinions. ![]() One question could be: “Was Kelley right about white people?” It depends on who is reading the book.Īfter all, Kelley’s first novel, “A Different Drummer,” published in 1962 when he was just 24, is told by a black man, about black people, through the eyes of white people. You could say there’s a certain symmetry to the fact William Melvin Kelley, the black “lost giant of American literature,” as The New Yorker called him earlier this year, was “rediscovered” by a white writer. An inscrption in the book by author Langston Hughes, shown here speaking before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953, sent writer Kathryn Schulz on a search for Kelley. ![]()
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