African American Studies: Literature & Theatre

African American Poetry contains nearly 3,000 poems by African American poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It provides a comprehensive survey of the early history of African American poetry, from the earliest published African American poems to the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first African American poet to achieve national success and recognition.

Contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.

The most comprehensive collection yet created of stories from Africa and the African Diaspora, offering short stories and folktales, ranging thematically from oral traditions that date back many hundreds of years to contemporary tales of modern life. The database also includes complete runs of selected literary magazines.

Contains the works of more than 900 historically important African American authors, dating from Colonial times to present.

Celebrates the many voices of women from Africa and the African Diaspora. Offering fiction, poetry, and essays from three continents, the database gives an unparalleled view of black women's struggles through time.

Database of modern and contemporary African American poetry, including some of the most important African American poets of the last century, including Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, and Rita Dove.