<P> Beginning in the 1970s, African - American literature reached the mainstream as books by Black writers continually achieved best - selling and award - winning status . This was also the time when the work of African - American writers began to be accepted by academia as a legitimate genre of American literature . </P> <P> As part of the larger Black Arts Movement, which was inspired by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, African - American literature began to be defined and analyzed . A number of scholars and writers are generally credited with helping to promote and define African - American literature as a genre during this time period, including fiction writers Toni Morrison and Alice Walker and poet James Emanuel . </P> <P> James Emanuel took a major step toward defining African - American literature when he edited (with Theodore Gross) Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America (1968), a collection of black writings released by a major publisher . This anthology, and Emanuel's work as an educator at the City College of New York (where he is credited with introducing the study of African - American poetry), heavily influenced the birth of the genre . Other influential African - American anthologies of this time included Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro - American Writing, edited by LeRoi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka) and Larry Neal in 1968; The Negro Caravan, co-edited by Sterling Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee in 1969; and We Speak As Liberators: Young Black Poets - An Anthology, edited by Oorde Coombs and published in 1970 . </P> <P> Toni Morrison, meanwhile, helped promote Black literature and authors when she worked as an editor for Random House in the 1960s and' 70s, where she edited books by such authors as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones . Morrison herself would later emerge as one of the most important African - American writers of the 20th century . Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970 . Among her most famous novels is Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 . This story describes a slave who found freedom but killed her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery . Another important novel is Song of Solomon, a tale about materialism, unrequited love, and brotherhood . Morrison is the first African American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature . </P>

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