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Black Biography Finally Comes of Age

Only by knowing how works about African Americans have been suppressed or disparaged is it possible to understand the great achievements of contemporary biographers and their subjects.

Newspress photo via Wikimedia Commons
Althea Gibson during a ticker tape parade at New York City celebrating her triumph at Wimbledon, July 11, 1957. Newspress photo via Wikimedia Commons
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

‘The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence’
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 496 pages

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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