The Reading Warehouse

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Born in British Guiana in 1898 and raised in Barbados and Panama, Walrond arrived in the U.S. in 1918 when the wave of West Indian immigrants was reaching its peak. He worked as an editor for Marcus Garvey's Negro Worm and Charles S. Johnson's Opportunity but moved on to Europe after ten years. This anthology retraces Walrond's migratory life by focusing on key periods of his work.

Examples of his apprentice writing document his early encounters with racial prejudice and his ambivalence toward the Garveyites, while a second section focuses on his involvement with the New Negro Movement and reflects both his emphasis on racial pride and interest in literary aesthetics. A third section contains impressionistic stories from Tropic Death, which vividly depicts the lives and culture of Caribbean Blacks and still holds a unique place in Black literature. A final section samples Walrond's work from England, much of it unknown today, where he continued to write on the themes of migration, discrimination, and racial pride until his death in London in 1966.

Louis J. Parascandola's introduction to the collection provides the most complete description to date of Walrond's life and work. It brings together previously undocumented biographical information that situates him in the context of his times, and it offers both anoverview and a renewed appreciation of his writings. This book restores Walrond to his proper place in the history of African American and Caribbean literature and is an essential reader for students of Black culture.

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