Home to Harlem

With raw, unflinching candor, author Claude McKay explores race, identity, love, and loss and gives voice to the plight of young Black men during the Jazz Age. Jake Brown, a Black American soldier and a World War I deserter, returns to Harlem and struggles to find his place in a vibrant working-class community that's rife with poverty, crime, and racism. He meets various characters, including a displaced Haitian intellectual, prostitutes, hustlers, and jazz musicians, and he experiences everything from love and joy to despair and violence. A pivotal figure of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay is celebrated for his captivating poetry and prose that echo the struggles and affirmations of the Black experience. Despite receiving praise and condemnation upon its publication in 1928 for its sensual, brutally honest portrayal of urban life, Home to Harlem became the first bestseller written by a Black author.