“Seven people were dancing, three couples and Marcel. Midnight.”
June 11, 2016 6:51 AM   Subscribe

This Week In Fiction: Discovering An Unpublished Story by Langston Hughes [The New Yorker]Seven People Dancing” is a story by Langston Hughes that was written, most likely, in the early sixties, but was never published.
“I found the story in the voluminous Langston Hughes Papers at Yale in the course of researching my two-volume biography of Hughes. About thirty years later, David Roessel, of Stockton University, co-editor with me of “Selected Letters of Langston Hughes” (2014), came upon the story in the Hughes papers and thought it should be published.

Aware that it was a compelling if unusual piece, I had discussed it at the start of what turned out to be an eight-page treatment (Vol. II, pp. 333-340) of Hughes’s attitudes to sex, especially homosexuality and interracial sex, at a time of unprecedented freedom of expression in American writing on the subjects of sex and race. The story, which is undated, was probably written around 1961, when James Baldwin’s sensational, bestselling novel about race and sex, “Another Country” (1962), was about to appear. (Hughes reviewed that novel anonymously but masterfully for the Kirkus book review service.)”
posted by Fizz (5 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
I liked that story a lot; thanks for posting it.
posted by languagehat at 7:56 AM on June 11, 2016


How could I have forgotten about Langston Hughes for so long?
posted by jim in austin at 8:35 AM on June 11, 2016


How could I have forgotten about Langston Hughes for so long?

Some librarian friends of mine have commented that as a result of recent protests and the black lives matter movement within the past year or two, that there has been a surge in interest of writers such as: Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Malcom X, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, etc. We were discussing this renewed interest and how pleased we were with this. It might have just been at her one branch but even then. That younger people are interested in their civil rights and activism for a worthy cause is definitely something to aspire to.
posted by Fizz at 9:10 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm missing a lot, despite RTFA. Does the end mean that she offers to pay for sex?
posted by Omnomnom at 1:23 PM on June 11, 2016


It stands up to re-reading. There's a lot of detail nested in the words. Great writers can convey a lot in brief sentences.
posted by domo at 9:07 AM on June 14, 2016


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