The Routledge Introduction to African American Literature considers the key literary, political, historical and intellectual contexts of African American literature from its origins to the present, and also provides students with an analysis of the most up-to-date literary trends and debates in African American literature.

1. Introduction

2. The Era of Slavery

3. Reconstruction through the 1910s

4. The Era of the Harlem Renaissance

5. Mid-Twentieth Century Literature

6. The 1960s and the Black Arts Movement

7. The Flourishing of Black Women Writers and the Return to Black History

8. Twenty-first Century Writing: A Time of Reckoning

Quentin Miller is Professor of English at Suffolk University, USA.