★ 2021-03-03
The work of a late, lamented, and influential icon of the 1960s Black Arts Movement is brought back into print to connect with a post-millennial Black Lives Matter generations of readers—and writers.
Dumas was two months shy of his 34th birthday when, in May 1968, he was shot and killed by a New York Transit Authority policeman in what was judged a case of mistaken identity. By that time, the Arkansas-born writer had already become something of a cult legend for his poetry and fiction, steeped in folkloric imagery, magical realism, and a haunting, deeply evocative lyricism that was near music. His short stories were posthumously collected in two volumes edited by his friend and de facto literary executor Redmond, and this book contains all those stories as well as some previously uncollected ones. Whether you’re already familiar with Dumas or are just encountering him for the first time, such pieces as the title story, “A Boll of Roses,” and the much-anthologized classic “Ark of Bones” administer a shock of recognition of how, at such a relatively early point in his career, Dumas achieved near mastery of narrative form, whether the gothic horror of “Rope of Wind,” the allegorical cunning of “The University of Man,” or the unsettling bare-bones naturalism of “The Crossing.” Most of the stories deal with the raw-nerve perils and spiritual crises that come from growing up in the rural South while others, such as “Harlem,” engage the hair-trigger tension of Black urban life in midcentury America. And there are times, as in “Devil Bird,” when Dumas’ phantasmagorical and metaphysical tendencies merge into wild and wicked farce. For all these stories’ spellbinding attributes, some of them seem to trail off as if waiting for yet another draft to amplify or add on to their details. The newer stories seem like variations, even repetitions of previous themes. And yet, the last story, “The Metagenesis of Sunra,” a tour de force of creation mythology and cosmic improvisation, submits yet another jolt of discovery, suggesting how Dumas, who always seemed ahead of his own, albeit brief, time, was capable of advancing African American storytelling art even further than one previously suspected.
Every couple of decades or so, we need to be reminded of what made writers like Toni Morrison call Henry Dumas a genius.
When Henry Dumas was killed in 1968, he was a promising young writer about to make a name for himself in African American literature. Some 35 years after his death, this collection of short stories shows more than promise; it is the work of a mature writer able to elevate ordinary life to the level of myth and to make myth and folklore a part of everyday life. From the musings of a field hand attracted to a pretty civil rights worker to the lethal strength of a sax solo, these stories celebrate the magic present in every moment and the awesome power of the African American spirit. While Dumas's work has appeared in previous anthologies, libraries will wish to purchase this complete one to give readers an opportunity to explore the timeless talent of a lesser-known treasure of African American literature. Recommend for all libraries.-Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L., IN Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
[Henry Dumas] had completed work, the quality and quantity of which are almost never achieved in several lifetimes. . . . He was brilliant. He was magnetic and he was an incredible artist.”—Toni Morrison
"Each sentence a revelation of experience...[A]ctual black art, real, man, and stunning."—Amiri Baraka
"The first time I read Henry Dumas's Ark of Bones, I felt the hair raising on my head."—Margaret Walker Alexander
"[Dumas's] fictionis among the most significant produced by a writer of any race in this country in the 1960s."—Quincy Troupe