The Ways of White Folks

THE CELEBRATED SHORT STORY COLLECTION FROM THE AMERICAN POET AND WRITER OFTEN CALLED THE ‘POET LAUREATE OF HARLEM’

‘Powerful, polemical pieces’ New York Times

One of the most important writers to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes is best known as a pioneer of jazz poetry, but the stories in his 1934 collection, The Ways of White Folk, showcase his talent as a dynamic storyteller. Sometimes humorous, sometimes violent, but more often tragic, these poignant stories explore the tension that arises when the pretense of cordiality between Black and white Americans breaks down. Blending elements of blues and jazz, speech and song, into a triumphant and wholly original idiom The Ways of White Folk is a masterpiece of 20th century American literature.