Thelma Golden on the Literature of Harlem

"Last month, it reopened, after a seven-year hiatus-this time, in a handsome structure of dark concrete and glass, built specifically for the purposes of housing art. Thelma Golden, the museum's director, told us recently that preparations for that reopening have led her to dwell even more than usual on "the space and the place" in which the museum sits-that is, a Harlem that is both a physical location and an imaginary world that has inspired generations of Black artists."

"For many, " Go Tell It on the Mountain," Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel about the young stepson of a Pentecostal preacher, is Baldwin's classic Harlem novel. But, for me, it's this. "Another Country," which was published in 1962, tells the story of a group of young, artistic, politically engaged people who move among Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France. It has a love story embedded in it, but"

The Studio Museum in Harlem moved from a rented loft to a purpose-built dark concrete-and-glass building after a seven-year hiatus. The reopening emphasizes Harlem as both a physical neighborhood and an imaginative world that has inspired generations of Black artists. The Street portrays Lutie Johnson's struggle and survival in 1940s Harlem, combining luminous prose with stark sociological observation and centering women's lives and family histories. Another Country (published 1962) follows a group of young, artistic, politically engaged people moving among Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France and contains an embedded love story.

Read at The New Yorker