Singers of Daybreak : Studies in Black American Literature

Singers of Daybreak defies the "eurocentric" notion that black literature is didactic. In seven critical essays, Houston Baker refutes this thesis by exploring the writings and criticisms of authors who include Ralph Ellison, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frederick Douglass, Jean Toomer, Gwendolyn Brooks and George Cain. These critiques, then, emerge as an "afrocentric" examination of the black literary tradition that has been misunderstood and distorted.