The 90-year journey of a Harlem Renaissance novel

“[McKay] was just telling a story about the people he knew who had not been written about.”

加里·爱德华·霍尔科姆, professor and chair of newbb电子平台’s 非裔美国人研究系，是在描述“马赛的浪漫，是牙买加出生的作家克劳德·麦凯(Claude McKay)的小说. McKay was a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance, an era that celebrated Black art and Black identity. 这部小说写于80年前，是 在霍尔科姆的帮助下出版 in 2020. 

如果不是因为博士的工作. 霍尔科姆和他的联合编辑威廉. Maxwell, the manuscript may have remained in the archives, only available to those who sought it out. The novel features controversial topics and identities that would have been considered taboo, 或者至少非常不寻常, 为了他们的时间. Those themes and McKay’s own frustrations contributed to the delay in the novel’s publication.

“他对它失去了信心.霍尔科姆说. “He says in his letter as well ‘I'm not sure if I'm able to pull this off’. 写这个残疾的非洲人物, 西非特征, [when] all of his male characters up until then had been robust and healthy,霍尔科姆继续说道. “[McKay] himself was ill most of his adult life, so he was drawing from his own experience.”

McKay published several novels and poetry collections throughout his life, but what sets this novel apart from others is its inclusion of an especially diverse cast of characters, including a disabled Black protagonist and members of the LGBTQ+ community. 小说还涉及残疾歧视等话题, 政治, 以及散居在外的黑人的黑人身份. 

Holcomb first learned about the manuscript in the 1990s when he came across a reference to it in a McKay biography. Intrigued, he searched for the book in local libraries, but could find no trace of it.

“[I’d] heard his name, but I didn't know much about him. I started wanting to write a dissertation on Caribbean writers. And so I started reading about McKay and ultimately wanted to write about him.”

After attending a conference on the Harlem Renaissance early in his career, Holcomb shifted from Caribbean Studies to African American Literary Studies. He explains that he did not intentionally focus on Claude McKay, but that the process of learning more about McKay and his work came naturally.

After learning about the manuscript and being unable to find it in local libraries, Holcomb traveled to New York’s Schomburg Center for 研究 in Black Culture, where one of two copies of “马赛的浪漫” was held.

“And I looked at the book and I went, this thing is amazing,” Holcomb says. “你知道，应该有人发表这篇文章. 我想我可以试试.”

It wasn’t until several years later that Holcomb decided to come back to “马赛的浪漫” and finally pursue its publication alongside his co-editor. Despite several setbacks, “马赛的浪漫” was eventually published in 2020.

One of Holcomb’s favorite reviews of “马赛的浪漫” came from the Jamaican newspaper 《拾穗的人. The paper picked up the news of the novel’s publication and felt that its content could aid in dismantling any remaining anti-LGBTQ+ laws and targeted behaviors.

霍尔科姆说:“我从来没有想过这个问题. “That a novel could come along from the 1930s and people would say ‘we’ve got to use this as a weapon against the attack on LGBTQ people in this country’. I just thought these publishers that have this major newspaper in Jamaica are saying 'this book comes along from almost a century ago and tells us what we should be doing now in modern day.'”

The now-published novel has been well-received by students as well. 自出版以来, Holcomb has integrated “马赛的浪漫” into his African American Studies courses. Students learn about McKay and the history of the book’s publication in the novel’s introduction, 作者:Dr. 霍尔科姆自己. The course is often cited as a favorite among Holcomb’s students. 

最近, 霍尔科姆访问了马赛和丹吉尔, 摩洛哥, where McKay spent time when he was writing the novel. Holcomb was invited to present about McKay’s personal letters at a conference and took the opportunity to walk in the author’s footsteps. 

“I wanted to go hunt down a few things that McKay wrote about,” he said. “我明白他为什么这么喜欢这些地方了. 他喜欢呆在不太热闹的地方, 一切都很正常, 每个人都一直遵守规则.”

“马赛的浪漫” serves as an important reminder that just because people from certain communities were not often talked about does not mean that they didn’t exist. 

让他的故事继续流传下去, Holcomb and a co-writer will be publishing a book of McKay’s letters that will be available in 2025. The novel will continue to be taught in classrooms; McKay’s impact on the literary world is far from over.