Authors' Birthdays: February

This month we honor poets, novelists, scholars--and a Nobel Prize winner.

February 1: Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was a dominant literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote poetry, fiction, memoirs, plays, essays, articles, children’s books and more. A few of his works are The Weary Blues, Not Without Laughter, The Big Sea, and Black Nativity.

February 6: Melvin Tolson (1900-1966) was a poet whose works include Dark Symphony, Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, and Harlem Gallery.

February 9: Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award winning novelist, poet, and essayist. She is also involved in political action for civil rights and the environment. Her novel, The Color Purple, has been adapted for a movie and the theater.

February 18: Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was State Poet of New York in the early 1990s. She published 12 books—poetry collections and essays. They include Cables to Rage, Coal, The Cancer Journals, and Sister Outsider.

February 18: Toni Morrison is an internationally renowned novelist, playwright, essayist, and short story writer. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Her novel, Beloved, was adapted as a movie and was listed by the New York Times as the best book of American fiction in the past 25 years.

February 22: Ishmael Reed is a novelist, poet, and essayist who is known as a satirist. He has won awards including a MacArthur Fellowship. He has published many books including The Freelance Pallbearers, Mumbo Jumbo, Conjure, The Terrible Threes, and Japanese by Spring.

February 23: Haki Madhubuti is an author, poet, and founder of the influential Third World Press. He has published more than 20 books (some early books are by Don L. Lee, his previous name). His recent books include New and Selected Poems 1966-1996, HeartLove: Wedding and Love Poems, and YellowBlack: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet’s Life.

February 23: W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) was an author whose poetry, essays, novels, nonfiction books, and articles were infused with the depth of his scholarly knowledge of history and racial concerns. He was a social activist involved in the beginnings of the NAACP and other movements. He is known for his concept of the Talented Tenth and his most well-known book is The Souls of Black Folk.