Al Young

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Young, Al[bert James] (1939–), Mississippi born novelist and poet, long resident in California, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (1969), and a teacher of creative writing at Stanford. His first, brief novel, Snakes (1970), is the story of a black jazz musician; Who Is Angelina? (1975) depicts a young black woman in quest of herself; Sitting Pretty (1976) is the autobiographical recollection of a black man, told in the vernacular and ostensibly into a tape recorder; Ask Me Now (1980) presents an overage black professional basketball player in retirement; and Seduction by Light (1988) is about a black woman from Mississippi living uneasily in Hollywood. Young's poems, also drawing on the experiences and attitudes of his race, and obviously influenced by Whitman, appear in Dancing (1969), The Song Turning Back into Itself (1971), Geography of the Near Past (1976), and The Blues Don't Change (1982). He has written two books of memoirs related to his concern with music: Kinds of Blue (1984) and Things Ain't What They Used To Be (1987). He was also a major contributor to Mingus/Mingus (1989), devoted to a major figure of jazz who had died ten years earlier.