Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

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International Black Writers Conference
Non-American writers invited to the International Black Writers
Conference scheduled for Fisk University April 16-19 include Wole
Soyinka of Nigeria, Bloke Modisane of South Africa, Aime Cesaire
of Martinique and George Lamming of Jamaica . Shirley Graham,
the American-born widow of the late W . E . B. Du Bois, also has
been invited, as has Chester Himes, the American novelist who now
lives in Spain . Miss Graham makes her home in Cairo, Egypt . In
addition to the above writers, some 50 writers now living in the United
States have been invited . The Conference will be the largest and most
important of its kind ever held . Additional information is available
through John O. Killers, who is coordinating the Conference from
New York, or from the Office of Information at Fisk University in
Nashville, Tenn.
Publishing : The first book off the
presses at Drum and Spear Press is a
handsome reprint of C.L.R. James'
A History of Pan-African Revolt
($2.50) . The book can be ordered
directly from the press at 2001 11th
Street in Washington, D.C .
(20001)
or it can be purchased at Black book
stores across the country . . . In
Chicago, the new Path Press made
available a posthumous novel by
Frank London Brown, author of
Trumbull Park . The new work : The
Myth-Maker ($5 .00) . The company's
second book is Herman Gilbert's
novel, The Uncertain Sound
($6 .00) . The address : 223 E . 79th
Street . . . Still another precedent
was set when Gwendolyn Brooks,
one of the nation's most firmly established
poets, selected the Detroitbased
Broadside Press as publisher
of her latest volume, Riot . The collaboration
between poet and publisher
was designed partly to make the
book available at a reasonable price
to the Black community. It sells for
$1 .00 at Black book stores or at
NEGRO DIGEST Morch 1970
Broadside Press, 12651 Old Mill
Place in Detroit . . . In Chicago,
Third World Press and Free Black
Press continue to bring out inexpensive
volumes by Black poets. On tap :
collections by Barbara Mahone and
Sterling Plumpp . . . Also in Chicago,
the "veteran" Johnson Publishing
Company is planning two editions
of an anthology dedicated to
Gwendolyn Brooks . There will be a
"limited" hardcover edition of the
book and a less expensive paperback
edition . The book developed out of
a December tribute to Miss Brooks
at the Affro-Arts Theater. Dozens of
writers contributed poems and
pieces, and a number of out-of-town
writers journeyed to Chicago for the
occasion . Contributors will include
John O. Killers, Lerone Bennett Jr.,
Sarah Webster Fabio, Larry Neal,
Eugene Perkins, Sonia Sanchez and
Margaret Burroughs. Editors are
Patricia Brown, Don L. Lee and
Francis Ward . The idea of the book
developed out of the Kuumba Workshop,
under the direction of Val
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