What is African American literature? / by Margo N. Crawford

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: The Affective Atmosphere of African American Literature -- The Textual Production of Black Affect: The Blush of Toni Morrison's Last Novel -- Mood Books -- The Vibrations of African American Literature -- Shiver: The Diasporic Shock of Elsewhere -- Twitch or Wink: The Literary Afterlife of the Afterlife of Slavery

"In "Toni Morrison on a Book She Loves," Morrison explains how Gayl Jones' novel Corregidora (1975) transformed African American women's literature. As Morrison remembers her first encounter of Corregidora, she foregrounds the textual production of affect (a "smile of disbelief" that she still "feels on her mouth" two years after reading Jones' manuscript). Morrison writes: What was uppermost in my mind while I read her manuscript was that no novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this... So deeply impressed was I that I hadn't time to be offended by the fact that she was twenty-four and had no "right" to know so much so well... Even now, almost two years later, I shake my head when I think of her, and the same smile of disbelief I could not hide when I met her, I feel on my mouth still as I write these lines"-- Provided by publisher