Discipline: Literature

Claude Brown

Discipline: Literature
Region: Newark, NJ
MacDowell Fellowships: 1977, 1983, 1986, 1989
Claude Brown (1937 – 2002) was the author of Manchild in the Promised Land, published to critical acclaim in 1965, which tells the story of his coming of age during the 1940s and 1950s in Harlem. He also published Children of Ham (1976). The autobiographical Manchild in the Promised Land describes the cultural, economic, and religious conditions that suffused Harlem during Brown's early childhood and adolescence while constructing a narrative of Brown's tumultuous early life. From the age of six, his life involved stealing, alcohol consumption, truancy, and gang wars. These harsh realities of life in 1950s Harlem shaped his childhood. Hoping that a year away from Harlem would benefit him, his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in South Carolina. However, this just made Brown crave the violence of the streets. At the age of 11, he was placed in the Wiltwyck School for Boys, a reform school. Its director, Dr. Ernest Papanek, a psychologist who Brown described in Manchild as "probably the smartest and the deepest cat I had ever met," encouraged him to seek an education. Brown had many brushes with the law, was shot in the stomach and almost died, became a con man, and saw his brother become addicted to drugs. In Manchild in the Promised Land, Brown blames his brother’s unhealthy lifestyle on not having been exposed to the horrors of Harlem early enough in life. Acknowledging the damaging effects of drugs such as heroin and gang violence on his community and his friends, Brown moved away from Harlem to Greenwich Village and started attending night classes at a high school. He supported himself by working as a busboy and deliveryman and at other odd jobs, started piano lessons and found his way to Howard University, and from there to Stanford and Rutgers law schools. He left when he realized the lecture circuit was more lucrative than practicing law. Brown focused on urban issues, especially with respect to at-risk black adolescents. Manchild in the Promised Land has sold more than four million copies and has been translated to 14 languages. As of 2002 it was on the curriculum in many high schools and colleges. However, the book was banned in certain schools for its use of frank language.

Studios

Banks

Claude Brown worked in the Banks studio.

Banks, an ell on the north end of the Lodge dormitory, was first used as an artist’s studio in 1970. Since then, it has played host to an extraordinary list of writers working in several disciplines. In all seasons, Fellows have enjoyed the pastoral view through the French doors facing a field…

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