A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley review – a rediscovered classic

First published in 1962, this masterpiece of American literature was compared to Faulkner

The first officially recorded use of “woke” as a political term was in 1962, in an article by young African-American writer and teacher William Melvin Kelley. In the same year, he published his debut, A Different Drummer. It won him comparisons with Faulkner, then slipped into obscurity until this year, when a New Yorker article brought it back into the public eye, and sparked a bidding war.

It begins with Tucker Caliban, who shoots his livestock, sets fire to his house and leaves the fictional deep south state he calls home without a backward glance. Soon every other black man and woman in the state has gone, filing on to buses and into cars with carefully blank faces.

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from Books | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RjZi3p

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