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A raisin in the sun

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"Never before, the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959. Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations o...

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Main Author: Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965
Format: Downloads eBook Books eBook
Language:English
Published: 2011.
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Summary:"Never before, the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959. Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America -- and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun." "The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times. "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic." This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.
Physical Description:1 online resource
Format:Requires OverDrive Read (file size: N/A KB) or Adobe Digital Editions (file size: 2012 KB) or Kobo app or compatible Kobo device (file size: N/A KB) or Amazon Kindle (file size: N/A KB).
Audience:Text Difficulty K
0
ISBN:9780307807441
Author Notes:American playwright Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930 in Chicago. After attending the University of Wisconsin for two years and then studying painting in Chicago and Mexico, Hansberry moved to New York in 1950. There she held a number of odd jobs to make ends meet while trying to establish her writing career.

Hansberry wrote her first play A Raisin in the Sun in 1959. The first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. A Raisin in the Sun tells the story of a working-class black family in Chicago. The production won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and in 1961, the film version, starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, received a special award at the Cannes Film Festival. Hansberry's next play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, a drama set in Greenwich Village, had a short run on Broadway in 1964.

Hansberry's promising career was tragically cut short by her premature death on January 12, 1965. She was 34 years old. The plays To Be Young, Gifted and Black and Les Blancs were adapted from Hansberry's early writings by her ex-husband Robert Nemiroff. Both plays were produced off-Broadway, in 1969 and 1970 respectively.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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