A dazzling and comprehensive overview of the African American literary tradition. This landmark anthology includes the work of 120 writers over two centuries, from the earliest known literary work by an African American, Lucy Terry's poem "Bars Fight," to the fiction of the Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and the poems of U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove. To ground the African American literary tradition in its vernacular roots, the anthology opens with a generous section of blues, gospel, spirituals, jazz, rap, folktales, sermons, prayers, testimonies, and speeches. From there follows a deep and wide selection of writing in all genrespoetry, short fiction, novels, drama, autobiography, journals, and lettersincluding eleven major works in their entirety: Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Jean Toomer's Cane, Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground, Gwendolyn Brooks's Maud Martha, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Amiri Baraka's Dutchman, Toni Morrison's Sula, Adrienne Kennedy's A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White, and August Wilson's Fences. With a general introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., period introductions, author headnotes, annotations, and bibliographies, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature brings to a new audience the vibrant and varied tradition of African American literature.The Editors: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Nellie Y. McKay, William L. Andrews, Houston A. Baker, Barbara Christian, Frances Smith Foster, Deborah McDowell, Robert O'Meally, Arnold Rampersad, Hortense Spillers, and Richard Yarborough.