Letters in Exile

Claude McKay (1890–1948) was a luminary of the Harlem Renaissance and a major figure in Black transnational, Black queer, and Black Marxist history. His books include the poetry collection Harlem Shadows and the novels Home to Harlem and Banjo and the posthumously published Amiable with Big Teeth and Romance in Marseille. Brooks E. Hefner is professor of English at James Madison University. He is the author of The Word on the Streets: The American Language of Vernacular Modernism and Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow. He lives in Charlottesville, VA. Gary Edward Holcomb is professor of African American literature at Ohio University. He is the author of Claude McKay, Code Name Sasha: Queer Black Marxism and the Harlem Renaissance and coeditor of McKay’s Romance in Marseille. He lives in Athens, OH.

“Presents a rare and irascible, brilliant and lovable figure—Claude McKay. Lush, expansive, witty, astounding, these letters open vistas of an interconnected world, taking readers from the Caribbean and the US to London, Moscow, Marseille, Barcelona, and Tangier.”—Ernest J. Mitchell, Yale University“The publication of this long-awaited volume of McKay’s vagabond correspondence is a major event. It will be an indispensable companion to his poetry and fiction and a key resource for readers of African diasporic modernism.”—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of Diaspora“Lively, engaging, gripping. McKay’s personality, with its famous irascibility and acidity, shines through, as does an unexpected warmth and loyalty. A figure of enduring fascination for years to come.”—Melissa Barton, Yale University