Modern Language Review

K. Merinda Simmons and James A. Crank have written a probing and valuable book about the overlooked relations between modernism as a field of literary study and writings about race. As they point out in the Introduction of their book, modernism has been most generally related to the study of Anglo-Saxon, white, and European culture. Their book focuses on select authors in order to argue that authors of colour as well as white modernist authors have had their imaginations [End Page 120] shaped by the worlds they explore. The focus is on the Caribbean, the Deep South of the United States, and Harlem. They lay out how each of these areas was instrumental in creating styles, dialectics, translations, as well as subjects which greatly advanced the modernist aesthetic. Simmons and Crank argue that authors who concern themselves with themes of racial relations in these areas have been traditionally misunderstood in relation to a study of modernism. Additionally, with authors such as Zora Neale Hurston, they propose that the modernist aesthetic cannot be completely understood without an understanding of the contributions made by the authors they touch upon and by writings about race. As the authors state: ‘These simultaneities and crosscurrents [between race and modernism] are what we aim to address in this book, emphasizing not the what but the how of race, modernism and the cultural products herein’ (p. 4). They refer to their book as a critical primer rather than a survey of the authors upon whom they focus.

The opening chapter explores origin narratives and the way in which dialect and translation (by which they intend the restructuring of modernist tropes through showing their relevance to other discourses) transformed modernist assumptions, primarily by turning critical attention to the primitivism that is implied in many modernist artworks. They explore how the modernist aesthetic is built out of the practices of writers not usually associated with modernist discourse. After this opening chapter, which also outlines the different styles covered throughout the book, they arrange the bulk of their analysis geographically. They begin with the Caribbean, as a place where primitivism, othering, and hybridity thrived. They refer to it, as is familiar in critical circles, as the ‘Global South’ or the ‘Other South’. They trace its impact on both black writers and writers such as Ernest Hemingway.

Comparatively, their next focus is on the Deep South and the birth of the Southern Renaissance. While focusing on the central authors of the Southern United States such as William Faulkner and others, they are also able to focus on the ‘plantation myth’ and the importance of agrarian culture in the South. The final geographical chapter is devoted to a crucial Renaissance, that of Harlem and its writers of colour. Throughout these chapters, the authors stress that though each of these areas is geographically diverse, the chapters support the basic thesis of their work, which is that ‘race and modernism are formed in and through one another’ (p. 150). Their concluding chapter reinforces this by considering the importance of performativity of race and the selling of concepts such as transnationalism, mimicry, and minstrelsy.

Each chapter is organized by an initial focus on critical queries and then a concluding section on thinking outward to other ways of exploring race and modernism. In keeping with this responsibly critical and almost pedagogic approach is the authors’ Coda, which links their work to contemporary thoughts or events about race in America. The book rewards a close reading and succeeds in establishing a basis for both scholars and lay readers to rethink common assumptions about both modernism and writings about race. [End Page 121]