Toomer, Jean

Toomer, Jean,

1894–1967, American writer, b. Washington, D.C., as Nathan Eugene Toomer. A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, he is known mainly for Cane (1923, rev. ed. 1988, 2011), a collection of stories, poems, and sketches about African-American life in rural Georgia and the urban North. He also wrote other poetry, essays, and plays.

Bibliography

See biography by R. Eldridge and C. E. Kerman (1987); N. Y. McKay, Jean Toomer, Artist (1984); G. Fabre, Jean Toomer and the Harlem Renaissance (2000).

Toomer, Jean (Eugene Nathan)

(1894–1967) poet, writer; born in Washington, D.C. He studied at the University of Wisconsin (1914), and City College, N.Y. (1917), and worked briefly as a superintendent of a black rural school in Georgia (1921). He studied with a mystic in France (1924), lived in Harlem (1925) and Chicago (1926–33), then married and settled in Pennsylvania (1934). An important writer of the Harlem Renaissance, he is best known for Cane (1923), a work combining poetry, fiction, and drama.