Black April A Novel [Paperback]

JULIA PETERKIN (1880–1961) was the author of three novels, a collection of short stories, and, with photographer Doris Ulmann, a nonfiction collection of essays entitled Roll, Jordan, Roll. She was the first South Carolinian to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize.Julia Peterkin pioneered in demonstrating the literary potential for serious depictions of the African American experience. Rejecting the prevailing sentimental stereotypes of her times, she portrayed her black characters with sympathy and understanding, endowing them with the full dimensions of human consciousness. In these novels and stories, she tapped the richness of rural southern black culture and oral traditions to capture the conflicting realities in an African American community and to reveal a grace and courage worthy of black pride.

[Black April is] the first genuine novel in English of the Negro as a human being.

The figure of Black April, the foreman of Blue Brook Plantation, who gives the book its title, is of the heroic, almost grandiose, mold of the legendary protagonists of fiction.

Black April's vigorous simplicity makes it deserving of a place among the world's best folk-tales.

In these novels and stories, Peterkin taps the richness of rural southern black culture and oral traditions to capture the conflicting realities in an African American community and to reveal a grace and courage worthy of black pride.