Chesnutt, Charles Waddell (1858-1932), is considered to have been the first major African American writer of fiction. His first book, The Conjure Woman (1899), is written in the style of folk tales and tells about slavery in the South. Chesnutt’s other fiction describes racial struggles of African Americans, especially those who have both Black and white ancestry. He featured these themes in The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line (1899), as well as in his novels, The House Behind the Cedars (1900), The Marrow of Tradition (1901), and The Colonel’s Dream (1905).
Chesnutt was born on June 20, 1858, in Cleveland, Ohio. His family moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, when he was 8 years old. He attended school until he was 13 and later studied with tutors and taught himself. Chesnutt left the South during his 20’s. He worked as a court stenographer in Cleveland and passed examinations that permitted him to become a lawyer. In 1928, Chesnutt received the Spingarn medal, partly for his “pioneer work as a literary artist depicting the life and struggles of Americans of Negro descent.” He died on Nov. 15, 1932. In 2002, the Library of America published Chesnutt’s collected writings as Stories, Novels, & Essays.
