William Luis

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Black Writers and the Hispanic Canon by Richard Jackson
Review by: Edward Mullen
Source: Afro-Hispanic Review, Vol. 18, No. 1 (SPRING 1999), p. 59
Published by: William Luis
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23054039
Accessed: 04-01-2018 00:13 UTC

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 Black Writers and the Hispanic Canon

by Richard Jackson
New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997. 138 pp.

Reviewed by Edward Mullen

In 1965 the author of the book under review theoretical frame and he has the honesty to say so:
published "An Underdeveloped Area" in Hispania. "Black
ThisHispanic writers create out of ethnic memory. I
brief but powerful statement urged Hispanists toliterature, certainly the representative works I
read this
reevaluate how they had built the traditional canon andthe same way" (9). After a brief treatment of
discuss...in
called for the inclusion of Afro-Hispanic texts in
the importance of the interview and autobiography as
Hispanic studies. It was followed by a series ofimportant
ground vehicles for diasporic self-expression (Chapter
breaking books (The Black Image in Latin American
Two), Jackson examines core texts in the Afro-Hispanic
Literature, 1976, and Black Writers in Latin America,
canon by pairing established writers with newer voices.
1979, are probably the best known) that openly
Thus, Chapter Three focuses on three pivotal Afro
Cubans:
challenged prevailing notions about the role played byJuan Francisco Manzano, Nicolas Guillen and
race and ethnicity in Spanish-American letters. Nancy
Written
Morejon. With the exception of Chapters Four
in the wake of the Black Arts movement in the late and Six, which are devoted to a single author (Juan
1960s and firmly grounded in the tenets of the newPablo Sojo and Manuel Zapata Olivella, respectively),
Chapters Five, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten continue
Black Aesthetic, Jackson's early work had a profound
shaping effect on future incursions into the field. the technique of contrastive pairings: Adalberto
Ortiz/Nelson Estupifian Bass; Pilar Barrios/Gerardo
Black Writers and the Hispanic Canon, published as
part of Twayne's World Authors Series, may be Maloney; Carlos Guillermo Wilson/Quince Duncan;
considered an update to his earlier work. Jackson states Bias Jimenez/Norberto James; Nicomedes Santa Cruz/
his goals clearly: "My primary objective in this work is Antonio Acosta Marquez. The concluding chapter,
to identify essential Black Hispanic authors whose "From Authenticity to 'Authentic Space': The
works should be better known and can represent the Emergence, Challenge, and Validity of Black Hispanic
Hispanic canon itself' (xi). As Jackson makes clear as Literature" serves as a summary/challenge to the book's
well, his present study is not merely an addendum to readers by stressing both the need to continually revisit
what he has done in the past, but includes new readings the traditional canon and by stressing the validity and
of classic texts in tandem with the introduction of importance of the Black presence as an essential part of
younger writers. The book is divided into eleven the culture mosaic that constitutes the New World
chapters in which Jackson comments on the works of experience.
fifteen Black Hispanic writers who the author deems The book is complemented by an exceptionally useful
"worth reading, especially to those with a Black North selected bibliography of both primary and secondary
American perspective" (104). In Chapter One, "The sources and a carefully prepared author/subject index. In
Complexity of Complexion: Reading and Understanding spite of its brevity, Black Writers and the Hispanic
Black Hispanic Writing," the author underscores his Canon has much to offer the student of world literature.
position about what constitutes Afro-Hispanic liter Here novices will surely find commentary about writers
ature. For Jackson, writers of African ancestry con whom they will want to read, and the experienced
stitute a community, one shaped by a set of shared scholar will have the chance to revisit old territory now
experiences, the primary being racism. Although there peopled with new faces.
are, no doubt, those who will disagree with such a
position, the honesty and passion with which it is
presented will no doubt be recognized by the academic
community. Race remains at the center of Jackson's

AFRO-HISPANIC REVIEW SPRING 1999

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