Frank London Brown

Frank London Brown (October 17, 1927 – March 12, 1962) was an American author, journalist, and activist. His writings include two novels, Trumbull Park (1959) and The Myth Maker (posthumous publication, 1969), recognized as contributions in literary realism and literary existentialism. A part of the Chicago Black Renaissance, his novels portrayed African-American experiences in Chicago and urban America.[1][2]

Frank London Brown
BornFrank London Brown
(1927-10-17)October 17, 1927
Kansas City, Missouri, US
DiedMarch 12, 1962(1962-03-12) (aged 34)
Chicago, Illinois, US
OccupationAuthor; trade unionist
NationalityAmerican
EducationRoosevelt University
University of Chicago

Life

Frank London Brown was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and moved with his family to Chicago at age 12. He graduated from DuSable High School and for a short time attended Wilberforce University. Brown enlisted in the U.S. Army, and served as a singer in an Army band. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Roosevelt University, and went on to graduate school at the University of Chicago where he became part of the Committee on Social Thought, earning a master's degree and working toward a PhD. While attending school and pursuing his writing, he worked various jobs, including as a union organizer for the United Packinghouse Workers of America.[3]

In addition to short stories and novels, Brown was a prolific journalist, writing for the Chicago Defender, Chicago Review, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Ebony, Negro Digest, and other periodicals. His coverage of the Emmett Till murder became especially well known. A devotee of jazz and blues music (in which genres he sometimes performed as a club vocalist) he wrote a seminal article on Thelonious Monk for DownBeat magazine.[2]

Brown was diagnosed with leukemia in 1961 and died the following year.[2]

Work
  • Trumbull Park. A novel. Regnery, Chicago 1959; Northeastern University Press, Boston, Mass. 2005, ISBN 9781555536282.
  • Short stories. 2. Auflage. Frank London Brown Historical Association, Chicago 1969.
  • The myth maker. A novel. Path Press, Chicago 1969.

In anthologies
  • Ulli Beier (Hrsg.): Black Orpheus. An anthology of new African and Afro-American stories. 1. Auflage. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York 1965.
  • Langston Hughes (Hrsg.): The best short stories by Negro writers. An anthology from 1899 to the present. 1. Auflage. Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1967.
  • Wayne Charles Miller (Hrsg.): A gathering of ghetto writers: Irish, Italian, Jewish, Black, and Puerto Rican. New York University Press, New York 1972, ISBN 9780814753583.
  • John Henrik Clarke (Hrsg.): Black American short stories. One hundred years of the best. Hill and Wang, New York 1993.
  • Sascha Feinstein und David Rife (Hrsg.): The jazz fiction anthology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2009, ISBN 0253221374.
  • Abraham Chapman (Hrsg.): "Black Voices." "An Anthology of Afro-American Literature." New American Library, New York and Scarborough, Ontario 1968
  • William Adams, Peter Conn, Barry Slepian (Hrsg.): "Afro-American Literature: Fiction." Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts 1970
  • Gerald Camp and James Gray (Hrsg.): "The Pleasures of Fiction" Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Philippines 1972
  • John Henrik Clarke (Hrsg.): "American Negro Short Stories." Hill and Wang, New York 1966

References
  1. "Frank London Brown". Oxford Reference. The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford University Press. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
  2. Swearingen, Rachel (2019). "Frank London Brown". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
  3. Tracy, Steven C., ed. (2011). Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance. University of Illinois Press. pp. 121–133.
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