The Big Sea - Langston Hughes

I have known of Langston Hughes for a long time but never read anything he wrote or knew anything much beyond his name until last year when I read When Harlem Was in Vogue about the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. For this year's Back to the Classics challenge for the BIPOC category, I decided to read Hughes' autobiography, The Big Sea, which chronicles his childhood through young adulthood. A second memoir, I Wonder As I Wander, recounts his life during the 1930s. Since Hughes was born in 1901, he spent his 20s in the 1920s, and so on. 

I absolutely loved reading The Big Sea and gave it 5 stars on GoodReads. I think it was a great introduction to the man and his work--he sprinkles some of poems throughout, providing the backstory to how and when he came to write specific milestone works and putting his thoughts about his early work into perspective.

I was particularly interested in hearing about his many travels and the various jobs he did to support himself and his mother while he was a teenager and young man. His father and mother split up early in their marriage, and his father lived in Mexico where Langston visited him during the summers when he was in high school. Langston also worked on many ships, travelling to Africa and Europe and the Caribbean. He lived for awhile in Paris as well. He says many times that his best writing was done during low points in his life, and he definitely had many hard times.

Reading about the Harlem Renaissance, of which he was an active participant, and his interactions with the other major players--the artists, promoters, and patrons--was absolutely fascinating, especially after reading When Harlem Was in Vogue. I found myself looking up people, places, songs, and other things that he mentioned.

I'm always interested in reading about the writing life, and the motivations, inspiration, and work habits of great writers is a topic that I never grow tired of. One of the things I liked about this memoir is that Hughes doesn't brag about his accomplishments but he is not coy about them either. He knows he is a gifted writer and poet. He is self-aware and acknowledges when his work is at its best, and I really appreciate his willingness to embrace who he is and what he has to offer the world. Published in 1940, when he was just 39 years old, so much of his major work was still in front of him when he wrote this memoir. That's actually one of the things that makes this so interesting--he wasn't an old man looking back and remembering. Much of what he recounted was still relatively fresh and recent.

I will probably read I Wonder As I Wander later this year, after I get my hands on some of his poetry books. I now think that I will have the right frame of mind to appreciate them more than if I had simply dove into the deep end.