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Abstract
Traced back to pre-Civil War era, the "Black life" novel, wherein white writers purported to give to the titillated and curious white reading public insights into a world where most or all of the main characters were Black, enjoyed periods of resurgence, particularly in the 1920s and 1990s. This study surveys and comments on this popular fiction sub-genre that have featured Blacks as principal protagonists and crucial main characters, all created by white authors who were generally sensitive and wellmeaning but also by some who were exploitive, patronizing, and condescending. Oftentimes these authors had had close personal contact with Blacks while others had only superficial knowledge of them, raising the issues of authenticity and propriety.
The appearance in the 1990s of an unusual number of adult fiction books portraying the lives of Black folks written by white novelists wherein most or all of the main characters are Black, including the principal protagonist, attests to the irresistible progression of forces in American society that resulted in the production of a string of such works extending back to the early 1920s. From one extreme to the other, these "Black life" novels have been applauded and trashed by critics of both races as, on the one hand, sensitive but oftentimes clumsy, self-conscious attempts to understand and humanize African Americans, and on the other hand condescending, overrated examples of literary slumming. Crafting a believable plot and setting is not paramount here; rather these assessments are largely the result of varying perceptions of white authors' intentions and the degree to which they were seen to empathize with the characters in these novels. None were granted temporary passports to journey through Black America and artistic license is scrutinized at every checkpoint.
Understandably, fear of betrayal, misrepresentation, and a host of unseemly motives have been attributed to whites who have ventured to write about peoples of color, and for good reason too. Numerous instances of white fiction writers exploiting other races to advance their careers and socio-political views extends back nearly two centuries and continues to this day. The most egregious examples of these are the racial charlatans who, anonymously or using pen names to disguise themselves, wrote sympathetic but completely bogus slave narratives/novels like The Slave; or Memoirs...