A platform for nurturing new literary talent: the Hurston/Wright foundation and its cofounder Marita Golden discover and groom emerging writers of African descent

Black Issues Book Review, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Patrice Gaines

It is a fall night at a suburban Washington, D.C., hotel where authors--some decked out in artistic and Afrocentric variations of "black-tie"--are arriving for the Oscar-like ceremony. The occasion is the 2004 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the third annual bestowing of the first major prize for published authors of African descent, Marita Golden, president of The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, slips through the elegant crowd, fielding reporters' questions while greeting members of the black literati and their supporters.

Golden, swathed in a red stole, spots Legacy nominee Wil Haygood (In Black told White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.) and rushes over to greet him. She is the grand hostess on this night, introducing newly printed authors like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Purple Hibiscus) to more seasoned writers like Paule Marshall (Brown GM, Brownstones), all while fielding inquiries about the program and dinner.

At the reception before the awards program at the Inn and Conference Center at the University of Maryland College Park, writers and guests sip wine and mineral water. Author and poet asha bandele (Daughters), wearing a long, black silk skirt and lavender headwrap is escorted by her young daughter, Nisa, who is four. A'Lelia Bundles, author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, chats with legendary children's author Eloise Greenfield, who was honored at the 2003 Legacy Awards.

When the socializing ends, the crowd moves into a cushiony theater for the awards program, which Golden opens by announcing, "I can't think of a time when we have needed literature more--literature as refuge, literature as restoration ... literature that reminds us in the end, we can overcome our own folly."

Actress S. Epatha Merkerson, lover of literature and star of NBC's Law & Order, hosts the 2004 Legacy Award Program. There are awards for: fiction, debut fiction and nonfiction. Two finalists in each category receive $5,000 and the winner in each genre receives $10,000.

On this night, when Adichie receives the Legacy Award for Debut Fiction, she says, "This is a wonderful thing because I'm African and this is African American, and it is important we continue the bond that unites us. This prize is not just a good thing, it is a necessary thing."

The Foundation's Roots

For years, Golden, who has authored or edited 12 books, taught at universities where she saw how few black students were enrolled in the writing programs. In 1990, she started the Hurston/Wright Foundation, named after two premiere black writers of the Harlem Renaissance, to fill that void. Her first offering was a writing award for college students. Next came a summer workshop for unpublished writers.

In 2002, the foundation added the Legacy Award. The prize honors literary works and not "popular" or "commercial" writing, something about which Golden says, "We make no apologies. We're looking for stories that also chart new ground.

"Literary fiction has always had a hard time, even in the white community, but in our community, literary fiction is gasping for air," Golden adds. "Yet literary fiction offers the most complex illustration of our lives. Many of the works we shine a light on have been orphaned--published, but forgotten."

The Hurston/Wright Foundation has become the predictor of success for emerging black writers, and Golden has earned the respect of the publishing world as a discoverer and nurturer of new talent.

"Marita Golden is one of the grande dames of African American literature," says Manie Barron, a literary agent in New York. "She has been a word warrior for longer than most of us were reading. She is the black Athena"

An Early Start

One afternoon, Golden sat in the living room of her home in suburban Washington, D.C., recalling the moment her mother deemed her a writer.

"When I was fourteen, my mother said I was going to write books," Golden says. "Some people try to kill their children's fire. She loved me enough to nurse it. I was called to write at an early age, and I guess, since a young age I've also been an activist."

In her latest book, Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex (Doubleday, April 2004), she describes growing up "in a black middle-class neighborhood of three-story, stately Victorian brownstones. Her mother worked as a domestic and owned several boarding houses. Her father was a taxi driver who also ran numbers.

At Washington American College (now the American University in Washington, D.C.), Golden joined the movement to push for black studies courses. Her first poem was published while she was a student, in an anthology edited by Nikki Giovanni.

She was working as an editorial assistant at Doubleday in New York City when she began taking writing classes in the evening. Then at age 24, in 1973, she married a Nigerian and returned with him to his homeland.

When the marriage didn't work out, she moved to Boston, with a year-old son. She followed her agent's suggestion to write about her experiences in Africa, thus giving birth to the best-selling memoir, Migrations of the Heart (Doubleday, 1983). Both Don't Play in the Sun, a hard-hitting meditation on the role that color plays among African Americans, and Migrations of the Heart are due out in paperback in January. Meanwhile, there's also major buzz building on Golden's novel due out in 2006. It represents four years of intensive work that she feels really good about, and her close colleagues say it is "her best writing yet."