Books by Henry Louis Gates

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s original, groundbreaking study explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature, elaborating a new critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself.

In this insightful volume, Gates focuses critcal attention on the most repressed element of African-American criticism - the language of the text. Incorporating the theoretical insights of critics such as Bakhtin, Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, and Bloom, he explores the work of a wide range of African-American writers from Phillis Wheatley to Ishmael Reed and Alice Walker.