Arna Bontemps

Arna Bontemps (1902-1973), photographed by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964), 1938. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Arnaud "Arna" Wendell Bontemps (October 13, 1902 - June 4, 1973) was a well-known African-American poet and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance.

Life 

Youth and education

Bontemps was born in the city of Alexandria, Louisiana, the son of Charlie Bontemps and Marie Pembrooke Bontemps.

When he was 3, his family moved to the Watts district of Los Angeles, California in the Great Migration of blacks out of the southern United States to cities of the North, Midwest and West.

He began writing while a student at Pacific Union College where he majored in English and minored in history. He graduated from Pacific Union in 1923.

Career

Arna Bontemps interview

After graduation he went to New York to teach at Harlem Academy. In New York he became an important contributor to the Harlem Renaissance where he met many lifelong friends including Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. Hughes became a role model, collaborator, and dear friend to Bontemps.

In 1943, after graduating from the University of Chicago with a masters degree in library science, Bontemps was appointed head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He held that position for 22 years and developed important collections and archives of African-American literature and culture, in particular the Langston Hughes Renaissance Collection. After retiring from the Fisk University in 1966, he worked at the University of Illinois (Chicago Circle) and Yale University, where he served as curator to the James Weldon Johnson Collection. Through his librarianship and bibliographic work, Bontemps has become a leading figure in establishing African-American literature as a legitimate object of study and preservation.

He is probably best known for his 1931 novel God Sends Sunday, the 1936 novel Black Thunder, and for the 1966 anthology Great Slave Narratives. He also wrote the 1946 play St. Louis Woman with Countee Cullen.

Bontemps died June 4, 1973, in Nashville, from a myocardial infarction (heart attack), while working on his autobiography.

Recognition

Arna Bontemps House and Church, Alexandria, Louisiana

Bontemps's critically most important work, The Story of the Negro (1948), received the Jane Addams Book Award and was also a Newbery Honor Book.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Bontemps on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

His birthplace at 1327 Third Street has been recently restored and converted for use as the Bontemps African American Museum. It is included on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

Publications

Poetry

• Personals. London: P. Breman, 1963, 1973.

Play

• St. Louis Woman (performed on Broadway, 1946). Alexandria, VA: Alexander St. Press, 2003.

Novels

• God Sends Sunday. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931.
• Black Thunder: Gabriel's revolt, Virginia 1800 (novel). New York: Macmillan, 1936; Boston: Beacon Press, 1963.
• Drums at Dusk: A novel. New York: Macmillan, 1939.

Short fiction

• The Old South: "A Summer Tragedy," and other stories of the thirties. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973.

Non-fiction

• W.C. Handy, Father of the Blues: an Autobiography (ghostwritten by Bontemps). New York: Macmillan, 1941.
• They Seek a City (with Jack Conroy). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1945.
  • revised as *Anyplace but Here (with Jack Conroy). New York: Hill & Wang, 1966.
• 100 Years of Negro Freedom. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1961.
• Great Slave Narratives. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.

Juvenile

• Sad-Faced Boy (illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1937.
• Popo and Fifina: Children of Haiti (by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes; illustrated by E. Simms Campbell). New York: Macmillan, 1932; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
• You Can’t Pet a Possum (illustrated by Ilse Bischoff). New York: William Morrow, 1934.
• The Fast Sooner Hound (with Jack Conroy). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942.
• We Have Tomorrow (illustrated by Marian Palfi). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1945.
• Slappy Hooper: The wonderful sign painter (with Jack Conroy; illustrated by Ursula Koering). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946.
• The Story of the Negro (illustrated by Raymond Lufkin). New York: Knopf, 1948.
• George Washington Carver. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson, 1950
  • also published as The Story of George Washington Carver. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1954.
• Lonesome Boy (illustrated by Feliks Topolski). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955.
• Frederick Douglass: Slave, fighter, freeman (illustrated by Harper Johnson). New York: Knopf, 1959
  • also published as * Free at Last: The life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971.
• Chariot in the Sky: A story of the Jubilee Singers. Philadelphia: Winston, 1951; New York: Holt, 1951; w London: P. Breman, 1963.
• Famous Negro Athletes. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1964.
• Mr. Kelso’s Lion (illustrated by Len Ebert). Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1970.
• Young Booker: Booker T. Washington’s early days. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1972. w
• Bubber Goes to Heaven (illustrated by Daniel Minter). New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• The Pasteboard Bandit (with Langston Hughes; illustrated by Peggy Turley & Cheryl A Wall). New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Edited

• Golden Slippers: An anthology of Negro poetry for young readers. New York: Harper & Row, 1941.
• The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949 (with Langston Hughes). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949
  • revised & expanded as The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1970. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970.
• American Negro Poetry. New York: Hill & Wang, 1963.
• Hold Fast to Dreams: Poems old and new, selected. Chicago: Follett, 1969.
• The Harlem Renaissance Remembered: Essays. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972.

Letters

• Arna Bontemps - Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967 (edited by Charles Harold Nichols). New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Audio/video

A Black Man Talks of Reaping - Arna Bontemps

Arna Bontemps Day Breakers

Arna Bontemps Miracles

• In the Beginning: Bible Stories for Children by Sholem Asch. Folkways Records, 1955.
• Joseph and His Brothers: From In the Beginning by Sholem Asch. Folkways Records, 1955.
• Anthology of Negro Poets in the U.S.A. - 200 Years. Folkways Records, 1955.
• Arna Wendell Bontemps Reading His Poems with Comment at Radio Station WPLN, Nashville Public Library, May 22, 1963. Library of Congress. Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature.
• An Anthology of African American Poetry for Young People. Folkways Records, 1990.

See also

• Harlem Renaissance poets
• List of U.S. poets

References

• Kirkland C. Jones, Renaissance Man from Louisiana: A Biography of Arna Wendell Bontemps, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992). ISBN 0313280134
• Charles Harold Nichols, editor, Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967, (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1980). ISBN 0396076874
• Bontemps, Arna, "Drums at Dusk: A Novel". Baton Rouge LA. :Louisiana State University Press, 2009 ISBN 978-0-8071-3439-9

External links

Poems

• Arna Bontemps 1902-1973 at the Poetry Foundation.
• Additional poems by Arna Bontemps

Audio / video

• Arna Bontemps at YouTube

About

• Arna Bontemps profile at the Academy of American Poets.
• Arna Bontemps at About.com
• Arna Bontemps (1902-1973) at Modern American Poetry.

Etc.

• Arna Bontemps Museum