Dorothy West Popular Books

Dorothy West Biography & Facts

Dorothy West (June 2, 1907 – August 16, 1998) was an American novelist short-story writer, and magazine editor associated with the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement in the 1920s and 1930s that celebrated black art, literature, and music. She was one of the few Black women writers to be published in major literary magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. She is best known for her 1948 novel The Living Is Easy, about the life of an upper-class black family and their attempts to climb the social ladder. She also explored the complexities of the black experience in the United States in short stories and essays that challenged stereotypes and explored themes such as race, class, and gender. Her work paved the way for future generations of African-American writers, and her legacy continues to inspire and influence writers today. Early life and education Dorothy West was born on June 2, 1907, in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Rachel Benson, one of 22 children, and Isaac Christopher West, a former slave who became a successful businessman. At the age of seven, Dorothy's father gained his freedom and by the time he was 10 years old, he had saved enough money in a cigar box to establish his own business. When Dorothy was born, her family was already the most affluent black household in Boston, thanks to Isaac West's ownership of a wholesale fruit company, which earned him the nickname "Black Banana King" of Boston. Her mother was from Camden, South Carolina. Her parents divorced when Dorothy was young, and her mother moved the family to Harlem, New York, in search of better opportunities. West attended Girls' High School in Brooklyn, New York, and then enrolled in Boston University's School of Journalism, but she dropped out after a year to pursue a writing career. The poet Helene Johnson was West's cousin. Late in life, West wrote that Blacks in Boston "were taught very young to take the white man in stride or drown in their own despair." She detailed how her mother guided her and her many cousins, all with varied skin tones, into the inhospitable world: "We were always stared at. Whenever we went outside the neighborhood that knew us, we were inspected like specimens under glass. My mother prepared us. As she marched us down out front stairs, she would say what our smiles were on tiptoe to hear, 'Come on, children, let's go out and drive the white folks crazy.' She said it without rancor, and she said it in that outrageous way to make us laugh. She was easing our entry into a world that outranked and outnumbered us. If she could not help us see ourselves with the humor, however wry, that gives the heart its grace, she would never have forgiven herself for letting our spirits be crushed before we had learned to sheathe them with pride." Career West began her writing career as a teenager, publishing stories in The Boston Post and the Boston Chronicle. West reportedly wrote her first story at the age of seven. Her first published work, a short story entitled "Promise and Fulfillment" appeared in The Boston Post when she was 14 years old. As a child, West reportedly became interested in writing after seeing an advertisement for a writing contest in the magazine Crisis, which was published by the NAACP. Her mother, seeking to protect her daughter from the news in the magazine, inadvertently inspired West to pursue her passion for writing. West won several local writing competitions and eventually attended Girls' Latin School (now called Boston Latin Academy), from which she graduated at the age of 16. She went on to study at Boston University and the Columbia University School of Journalism. In 1926, West tied for second place in a writing contest sponsored by Opportunity, a journal published by the National Urban League, with her short story "The Typewriter". She tied with future novelist Zora Neale Hurston. "The Typewriter” appeared in Dodd Mead's annual anthology The Best Short Stories of 1926 alongside work by Ernest Hemingway, Ring Lardner, and Robert Sherwood. Between 1928 and 1930, some of West's other early writings were published in the Saturday Evening Quill, a short-lived annual literary magazine that grew out of a literary club of the same name, of which West was a founding member. Actress West took a break from writing to pursue acting for a few years. In 1927, she applied for a playwright role in the original production of Porgy and Bess but was offered a small acting part instead. The opera ran for three months in London, where West traveled with the production in 1929. In June 1932, she joined other Harlem Renaissance intellectuals on a trip to the Soviet Union to film Black and White, a film about racism in the United States. Although the film project was cancelled shortly before their arrival, West decided to stay in the Soviet Union for a year, returning home only after her father's death. The film provided material for a 1985 essay that described her encounter with the film director Sergei Eisenstein. The film was abandoned by the Soviets, and she returned to the United States after a year when she learned of the death of her father. Harlem Renaissance Shortly before winning the Opportunity writing contest, West moved to Harlem with her cousin, the poet Helene Johnson. She became involved in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and was a member of the literary and artistic community centered on the Harlem Writers Guild. There, West met other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Wallace Thurman. During the Great Depression, West's principal contribution to the Harlem Renaissance was to publish the magazine Challenge, which she founded with $40 in 1934, the final issue of six being published in spring 1937. In 1934, she returned to Harlem and began writing again. She was mentored by Carl Van Vechten, a white writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Having given up on Challenge, in an effort to provide a platform for young black artists, she tried writing again with the more radical New Challenge, co-edited with Richard Wright, its the single issue containing writing by Ralph Ellison as well as Wright's "combative and influential essay 'Blueprint for Negro Writing,' which urged black artists to reject white artistic standards and draw inspiration instead from their own racial heritage." From 1938 to the early 1940s, she worked as a welfare investigator in Harlem, and then became a regular contributor to the New York Daily News. In 1945, West relocated to Martha's Vineyard, where she had many childhood memories. There, she began writing her novel, The Living is Easy, which was published in 1948. West's written works, including novels, short stories, and periodicals, addressed issues surrounding African-American life and black political and social matters. Her writing was influenced by her experiences with racism during her schooling and work in Harlem, as well as her time spent acting overseas. In .... Discover the Dorothy West popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Dorothy West books.