Claude McKay

Festus Claudius " Claude" McKay ( born September 15, 1890 in Sunny Ville, Clarendon, Jamaica, † May 22, 1948 in Chicago, United States) was a Jamaican poet and novelist. He was one of the earliest representatives of the Harlem Renaissance.

Life

McKay was the youngest child of a large family, his father was a relatively prosperous landowner, an exception among the dark- colored races, of which hardly a like McKay's father had enough to choose allowed. The family put emphasis on education and the literary ambitions of Claude McKay were also supported by Walter Jekyll, an English settler. He assisted in the publication of a first book of poems Songs of Jamaica ( 1912). These fifty poems were also the first printed poems in Jamaican patois, the language of the poor population of the island. McKay Constab Ballads from the same year reported experiences as a police officer.

In 1912, he left the island to visit in Charleston, South Carolina, the Tuskegee Institute Booker T. Washington. Later he moved to the Kansas State College, where he first became politically active. In 1914 he abandoned his studies. He moved to New York, to Harlem and opened a restaurant and married his childhood sweetheart Eulalie Imelda Lewars. Marriage and business failed and his wife went back to Jamaica. McKay was able in 1917 to publish the poems The Harlem Dancer and Invocation. Frank Harris, editor of the American edition of Pearson 's Magazine and Max Eastman of The Liberator were aware of him. Pearson's published in 1918 five of his poems, the first Liberator 1919 The Dominant White and later seven other poems. His militant poems like If We Must Die (1919) found despite their sonnet form, the recognition of the leading poets of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.

In 1919-20 he lived in London, read Karl Marx and was soon working for the socialist newspaper Workers' Dreadnought by Sylvia Pankhurst. He learned Francine Budgen know. The first version of the book of poetry Spring in New Hampshire appeared (1920). 1922 appeared more verbose output in the U.S. and also be well important book of poetry, Harlem Shadows. 1921-22 he was one of the editors of the Liberator. In November 1922, he gave a speech at the Fourth Congress of the Third International in Moscow. He spoke with Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin and Karl Radek got to know. He stayed for six more months in Russia. In the Soviet Union the essays The Negroes in America ( 1923) and the propagandistic short stories Trial by Lynching (1925 ) published. In May he traveled via Hamburg to Berlin, where he visited with Marsden Hartley Georg Grosz. He met the authors Pierre Loving and Josephine Herbst and learned philosophers of the Harlem Renaissance, Alain Locke, know. McKay moved to Paris in October, in the spring of 1924 he lived in the south, in La Ciott and Toulon, thanks to the help of Louise Bryant.

In 1925 he presented his first novel, Color Scheme, get set, but could not be published. In 1926-27 he lived in Marseilles. His novel Home to Harlem appeared in 1928 by Harper in New York and became a bestseller. From 1930 he lived until the end of 1933 in Morocco. Early in 1934 he returned to New York.

His autobiography, A Long Way from Home appeared in 1937; a second band My Green Hills of Jamaica in 1979 Harlem. Negro Metropolis came out in 1940 without finding any attention. In the same year he was American. In 1944, he stepped over to the Roman Catholic confession. He moved to Chicago, where he died in 1948 of heart failure.

His most famous novel is Home To Harlem (1928 ) of the Harmon Gold Award for Literature won. Later followed Banjo: A Story without a Plot ( 1929) and Banana Bottom ( 1933), the short story collection Ginger Town (1932 ) and the autobiographical works Long Way from Home (1937) and Negro Metropolis ( 1940). The most important topic is the life of the poor in Jamaica and New York, as well as his own experiences with discrimination and poverty.

Works

Translation in German:

• Hanna Meuter, "America I also sing ." Seals of American Negroes. Bilingual. Hg and Übers zus with Paul Therstappen. Wolfgang Jess, Dresden 1932. With short biographies. (Series:. 's New Negro The voice of the awakening African- America, Volume 1 ) edition ibid. 1959, pp. 72-75 ( Poem: " Negro Dancers" ) and introduction.