From Behind the Veil

A Study of Afro-American NarrativeSecond Edition

Author: Robert B. Stepto
The classic analysis of canonical Black texts
Paper – $28
978-0-252-06211-7
Publication Date
Paperback: 01/01/1991
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About the Book

Robert B. Stepto's pioneering study of African American narrative concentrates on the critical, historical, and textual. Stepto's analysis delves into the idea that Black culture has a store of canonical stories or pregeneric myths, the primary one being the quest for freedom and literacy. Covering works from slave narratives to mid-twentieth century fiction; Stepto looks at both autobiography and fiction from a number of canonical authors, including Henry Bibb, Solomon Northrup, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison.

This edition includes a new preface and the afterword "Distrust of the Reader in Afro-American Narratives."

About the Author

Robert B. Stepto is the John M. Schiff Professor of English at Yale University. His books include A Home Elsewhere: Reading African American Classics in the Age of Obama.

Reviews

"Uniquely penetrating and precise. . . . The strength of Stepto's method is that it allows us to see black prose fiction as a self-enclosed entity, innovating and elaborating within its own traditions, without resorting to extraliterary arguments."--Essence

"No doubt about it. This is a major book."--American Literary Scholarship