Charles W. Chesnutt
Charles Waddell Chesnutt ( born June 20, 1858 in Cleveland, Ohio, † November 15, 1932 ) was an American novelist, poet, essayist and early proponent of Afro-American literature.
Biography
Chesnutt was the grandson of a white slave owner who had a love affair with a slave, from Chesnutt's father emerged. Only at the age of eight he began his education, but took only six years later in 1872 at the age of fourteen years after the death of his mother herself a job as a teacher in order to feed his father's family with can. After a teacher in Charlotte ( North Carolina), he became in 1877 Rector of the Fayetteville State Normal School for Negroes.
In 1884 he moved with his wife and their three children Ethel, Helen and Edwin moved to Cleveland, where he studied law and in 1887, his lawyer received approval (Ohio State Bar ). He then took up a career as a lawyer.
He made his literary debut in 1885 with the short story Uncle Peter 's House, which was published in the daily newspaper Cleveland News and Herald. Two years later he portrayed in his early story, The Goophered Grapevine (1887 ), the Scuppernong, the state fruit of North Carolina.
According to the collections of short stories with the titles of The Conjure Woman ( 1899) and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line (1899 ) he published the novels The House Behind the Cedars (1900), The Marrow of Tradition (1901 ) and The Colonel's Dream ( 1905).
In his African-American literature with formative stories, essays and poems, he sat down beside it apart especially with "white " literature and prejudices.
He also became involved alongside Booker T. Washington in the civil rights movement and was among the first members in 1910 which was founded on February 12, 1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ).
1928 was awarded to him for his life's work, the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP.
External links and sources
- Charles W. Chesnutt in the Notable Names Database (English)
- The Charles Chesnutt Digital Archive
- Homepage ( charleschesnutt.org )
- Biography ( online literature.com )
- Biography and works ( aalbc.com )
- Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932)