Claude McKay

Claude McKay , 1890-1948, American poet and novelist, b. Jamaica, studied at Tuskegee and the Univ. of Kansas. A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay is best remembered for his poems treating racial themes. His works include the volumes of poetry Spring in New Hampshire (1920) and Harlem Shadows (1922); and the novels Home to Harlem (1927), Banjo (1929), and Banana Bottom (1933). For years McKay was involved in radical political activities, but he became increasingly disillusioned, and in 1944 he converted to Roman Catholicism.

Bibliography: See his autobiography, A Long Way from Home (1937).

McKay, Claude (1890–1948),black author, emigrated from his native Jamaica to the U.S. (1912). His books include Songs of Jamaica (1912) and Harlem Shadows (1922), poems; and the virile novels Home to Harlem (1928), the story of a black soldier deserting from the army in France to return to America; Banjo (1929), set on the Marseilles waterfront, where McKay worked for a time; and Banana Bottom (1933), about a black girl in Jamaica, who is torn between racial traditions and the education she has received in England. Gingertown (1932) collects short stories. His novels have sometimes been criticized for emphasizing the primitive and voluptuous aspects of black life dwelt upon by Van Vechten. A Long Way from Home (1937) is his autobiography. Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940) is a sociological study.