The Blue Period

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Black writers during the early Cold War navigated a complex landscape of ideological conflict, facing alienation from both revolutionary Communism and Jim Crow America. Jesse McCarthy explores how figures like Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Paule Marshall transformed their discontent into innovative literary forms. By emphasizing racial identity and personal experience, these writers created an aesthetic resistance that challenged prevailing narratives, marking a significant era in American literature known as "the Blue Period," spanning from World War II to the rise of Black Power.