Henry Dumas was considered a pivotal figure in African American literature of the 1960s. At the age of 33, he was killed by a white transit policeman in 1968 on a Harlem subway platform, and the circumstances of his death were never fully explained.
Most of the writer’s fiction and poetry was published posthumously through the efforts of former Random House editor and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison.
The story of how Dumas’ work found its way into print is intriguing and is central to understanding the politics of black literary production in the 1960s. But until the publication of Jeffrey Leak’s “Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas,” the writer’s story was largely unknown. This biography brings together Dumas’ life and writing, sifting through fact and fiction in search of a more informed understanding of one of the most mercurial writers of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s.
Leak, a professor of English and Africana studies, will discuss his prize-winning “Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas” at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 16, at UNC Charlotte Center City, as part of the Personally Speaking lecture series. This event is free and open to the public; RSVPs are requested. (Click on “Register Now” link on the website or call 704-687-0085.)
Most of Dumas’ work was published posthumously, and none of the archival materials had been released until Leak gained exclusive access from Dumas’ literary estate and the privately held papers of Lois Wright, with whom Dumas was romantically involved in the early 1960s.
This is the third of four conversations with faculty authors in the 2015-16 Personally Speaking series sponsored by UNC Charlotte’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and J. Murrey Atkins Library.