Author Works: The Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray

On the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance
Meet the Heartbeat of its Black Literary Revolution

100 years after the Harlem Renaissance, a new novel profiles the “literary midwife” who discovered and nurtured literary giants like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston…all while having an affair and love story with civil rights legend W. E. B. Du Bois.

“A page turner and history lesson at once, Harlem Rhapsody reminds us that our stories are our generational wealth— this book and the real lives that inspired it.”—Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage

HARLEM RHAPSODY brings readers into glittering 1920’s Harlem through the lens of Jessie Redmon Fauset, the heartbeat of its literary revolution. Not only did Jessie discover and nurture icons like Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston. She was also caught up in a decade-long affair and “parallel marriage” with the professor and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois—also her boss in her role as the literary editor of the NAACP’s The Crisis magazine.

In the 1920s, Harlem flourished as a place of Black pride. As the novel follows Fauset’s career, the reader is privy to both the brilliant creativity happening at this time while simultaneously understanding the experience of a Black woman who had to combat incredible sexism and racism to succeed.

Another of Jessie’s most complex yet loving relationships was with her stepmother, Isabella Huff, who was both Jewish and a staunch integrationist. Isabella deeply resented her daughter’s involvement with a married man. But she reveled in Jessie’s influence as someone using words to fight racism. Before the Harlem Renaissance, many if not all Black stories had been written by white writers. In The Crisis, Jessie had finally made available a space for Black writers to publish their own stories.

About the Author:

With almost three million books in print, NAACP Image Award-winning author Victoria Christopher Murray is one of the country’s top Black contemporary writers. Her prominence skyrocketed with recent forays into the inner lives and stories of underappreciated Black women. As the co-author with Marie Benedict of the breakout hits and New York Times bestsellers The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies, she traced the lives of Belle de Costa Greene, J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, and the Black civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune.

Books will be available for purchase at the event, and the author will be signing books post-event.  

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