African Americans and the Welsh 1845-1945
ISBN: 978-0-7083-1987-1
This book explores cultural interaction between Wales and Afro-America. Beginning in the nineteenth century with the leading African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass’s visit to Wales and the Welsh liberal Samuel Robert’s writings on racism in America, the author proceeds to explore Paul Robeson’s connections with Welsh socialists, Ralph Ellison’s experiences in wartime Swansea, Dylan Thomas’s influence on African American poets, and Michael Harpers’s poetic responses to his visits to Wales. In doing so, the author seeks to draw attention to certain similarities between the Afro-American and Welsh contexts as manifested in literary language, theme and form whilst also being aware of the crucial differences. The study explores the strengths and weaknesses of the comparative, transnational approach to cultural phenomena that characterises the emergent field of “transatlantic studies”.
Daniel Williams is Lecturer in English at Swansea University. He is currently on the WBC Grants Awarding Panel and was until 2003 a member of the Arts Council of Wales Grants Awarding Panel. He is assistant Director of CREW (Centre for Research into the English literature and Language of Wales); he edited Raymond Williams, Who Speaks for Wales?: Nation, Culture, Identity (UWP, 2003).