Overview

In A Matter of Complexion, Tess Chakkalakal gives listeners the first comprehensive biography of Charles W. Chesnutt. A complex and talented man, Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleveland to parents who were considered ""mixed race."" Though light-skinned, Chesnutt remained a member of the black community throughout his life. He studied among students at the State Colored Normal School who were formerly enslaved. He became a teacher in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction. His life in the South of those years, the issue of race, and how he himself identified as Black informed much of his later writing. He went on to become the first Black writer whose stories appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and whose books were published by Houghton Mifflin. Through his literary work, as a writer, critic, and speaker, Chesnutt transformed the publishing world by crossing racial barriers that divided black writers from white and seamlessly including both Black and white characters in his writing. In A Matter of Complexion Chakkalakal pens the biography of a poor teacher raised in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction who became the first professional African American writer to break into the all-white literary establishment and win admirers as diverse as William Dean Howells, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, and Lorraine Hansberry.

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Reviews

""Chakkalakal asks the reader to see the 'First Negro Novelist' as he saw himself: a writer and student of American letters at a time when the literary marketplace struggled to take him seriously."" -- ""New York Times Book Review"" ""Excellent...An overdue celebration of an unjustly forgotten author, this enthralls."" -- ""Publishers Weekly""

Author Information

Tess Chakkalakal is the author of Novel Bondage: Slavery, Marriage, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America and coeditor of Jim Crow, Literature, and the Legacy of Sutton E. Griggs and Imperium in Imperio: A Critical Edition. Her writing has appeared in the New England Quarterly, J19, American Literary History, and many others. She teaches African American and American literature at Bowdoin College. Diana Blue received her BFA in drama from Hofstra University and her MA in theater education from Emerson College. She is a classically trained actor, choreographer, and voice performer who resides in Connecticut. She has lent her voice to many promos, commercials, and TV voice-overs. Additionally, she is passionate in her work as a K-12 theater educator and director. Diana Blue received her BFA in drama from Hofstra University and her MA in theater education from Emerson College. She is a classically trained actor, choreographer, and voice performer who resides in Connecticut. She has lent her voice to many promos, commercials, and TV voice-overs. Additionally, she is passionate in her work as a K-12 theater educator and director.

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