Charles R. Johnson

American author

Learn about this topic in these articles:

African American literature

  • frontispiece and title page of Phillis Wheatley's book of poetry
    In African American literature: African American roots

    …the metafiction of philosophical novelist Charles R. Johnson. In Oxherding Tale (1982), Johnson sends his biracial protagonist on a quest for emancipation from slavery that he can attain only by extricating himself, in Johnson’s own words, from “numerous kinds of ‘bondage’ (physical, psychological, sexual, metaphysical).” Like the sophisticated, self-conscious trickster…

    Read More

American literature

  • John Smith: Virginia
    In American literature: African American literature

    …mold of Ellison and Baldwin; Charles Johnson, whose novels, such as The Oxherding Tale (1982) and The Middle Passage (1990), showed a masterful historical imagination; Randall Kenan, a gay writer with a strong folk imagination whose style also descended from both Ellison and Baldwin; and Colson Whitehead, who used experimental…

    Read More