Hansberry's drama: commitment amid complexity

When Lorraine Hansberry died of cancer at age 34, she left behind an impressive literary legacy that included such dramatic classics as A Raisin in the Sun and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, as well as scores of significant unpublished works. Here, for the first time, is a comprehensive, in-depth study of the complex multicultural plays and screenplays -- both well known and recently discovered -- of one of America's greatest playwrights. Steven R. Carter was granted private access to Hansberry's papers and manuscripts, and his insightful book examines her early life and influences, her overwhelming talent and theatrical vision, her unfailing faith in the human capacity for transcendence, and her immersion in the political and social movements of her time with their relation to her artistic goals. Carter offers detailed descriptions and analyses of her prolific output -- including various works-in-progress set in the antebellum American South, Africa, Haiti, Greenwich Village, and a post-atomic wasteland. This vivid account concludes with a long overdue assessment of Lorraine Hansberry's dramatic achievements and of her impact on twentieth-century theater.

"A Meridian book."

Originally published: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, ©1991.

Commitment amid complexity: an overview -- A Raisin in the sun -- Extension of a Raisin in the sun: the filmscripts and the musical -- The sign in Sidney Brustein's window -- Les Blancs -- The Drinking gourd -- Two responses to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot: What use are flowers? and The Arrival of Mr. Todog -- The Caribbean works -- Hansberry's dramatic legacy.