James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902 , in Joplin ,
Missouri . His parents divorced when he was
a small child, and his father moved to Mexico .
He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln ,
Illinois , to live with his mother and her
husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland ,
Ohio . It was in Lincoln ,
Illinois , that Hughes began writing poetry.
Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico
and a year at Columbia University .
During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a
busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe
working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington ,
D.C. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published
by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln
University in Pennsylvania
three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won
the Harmon gold medal for literature.
Hughes, who claimed Paul
Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg,
andWalt Whitman as his primary
influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of
black life in America
from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and
plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world
of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream
Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the
artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other
notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee
Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the
common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people
in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and
their love of music, laughter, and language itself.
Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer
in May 22, 1967 , in New
York . In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th
Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York
City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed
"Langston Hughes Place."
In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work,
Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the
well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple
Stakes a Claim,Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple's Uncle Sam. He
edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The
Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big
Sea ) and
co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.
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