Geography of the British Isles

Sasja - James Mercer Langston Hughes

(Jeg lægger det ind for Sasja, da hun ikke kan logge på bloggen)

James Mercer Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, play writer, and columnist. He was born the 1st of February 1902 in Joplin, Missouri and grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. After Langston’s parents were divorced, he was mainly raised by his grandmother. During high school he wrote for the school newspaper, edited the yearbook and he also began to write his first short stories, dramatic plays and poetry. As a young man he travelled a lot, Mexico, France and western Africa. In the end he decided to settle in, in Harlem, New York. Langston died the 22nd of May 1967, 65 years old. It is now known that he was homosexual.

Relationship with his father

Hughes had a very poor relationship with his father. They lived together in Mexico for a brief period in 1919. After graduating from high school in June 1920, Hughes returned to Mexico to live together with his father, hoping to convince him to support Langston’s plan to attend Columbia University. His father hoped for Langston to attend a university abroad, to study engineering. His father did not support his writing, but the two of them came to an agreement: Hughes would study engineering, as long as he could attend Columbia. He left his father after more than a year.

Art Langston’s first book was published in 1926. All in all he wrote 16 collections of poems, 2 novels, 3 collections of short stories, 4 collections of fictions, 20 plays, and poetry for children, musicals and operas, 3 biography and several articles. Also he edited 7 anthologies.

Poetry collections: “The Weary Blues” (1926)

Novels: “Not Without Laughter” (1930)

Short stories: “The ways of White Folks” (1934)

Plays: “Mule bone” (1934) “Black Nativity” (1961)

Ideas for persuasive speech

You have to write a speech wherein you try to persuade your fellow students to go on strike. Write your suggestions for what you can write about in a comment on this blog post.

Author presentations

This year you will all be doing author presentations both in class and on the blog.
Write between 150-200 words in your presentation of the author.

Your blog post on the author in question has to include:

• A short biography on the author.
• A picture of the author.
• The names of texts written by the author, which we have read in class at one point or another.
• A list of the sources on the internet (or books) where you found information about the author.
• Give the blog post the label "Authors".