University of Michigan Press Harlem Calling: The Collected Stories of George Wylie Henderson

George Wylie Henderson, known primarily for his novels ""Ollie Miss"" and ""Jule"", was also author of numerous short stories. While the stories were widely circulated in their day, appearing in the ""New York Daily News"" and ""Redbook"" magazine during the 1930s and 40s, they have largely escaped attention until now. Henderson narrates the everyday experiences of working-class characters in Alabama, Memphis, and New York City, providing a remarkable view of the Great Migration of blacks during the era of industrialization and of Harlem during the Depression. Henderson's writing has been compared favorably to that of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, as it captures the life of the black migrant with a style that embraces simplicity and honesty. Collected here by literary scholar and editor David G. Nicholls, and contextualized with an informative introduction, ""Harlem Calling"" provides a unique perspective on the Harlem Renaissance and on the African American literary tradition. About the Author George Wylie Henderson (1904-65), born in Alabama, worked in the printing trade and began writing fiction shortly after graduating from the Tuskegee Institute. He migrated to Harlem with his wife in the late 1920s, and published his first story in the New York Daily News in 1932. David G. Nicholls is the Director of Book Publications for the Modern Language Association, and holds a Ph.D in Literature from the University of Chicago. He is author of Conjuring the Folk: Forms of Modernity in African America. He lives in Hoboken, N.J.