Jean Toomer (1894–1967) was a modernist writer, a member of the Harlem Renaissance, and briefly part of the literary and artistic community that grew up around Mabel Dodge Luhan in Taos, New Mexico. This book, a critical edition of a previously unpublished 1935 manuscript, makes A Drama of the Southwest available to readers for the first time. The play provides a vivid glimpse into the social world of the artists who mined Taos for creative and spiritual renewal in the early twentieth century, and editor Dekker provides cultural and literary historical context, arguing for Toomer’s continuing creative power and significance at a time in his career that has been largely overlooked by critics.
Carolyn J. Dekker restores Jean Toomer to his rightful place as a writer who continued to grapple with important issues of region and place, outsider- and insiderness, and gender and cultural politics long after he published his seminal novel, Cane, in 1923.
--Lois Palken Rudnick, author of Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture
