Black Misery (Hardcover)

Black Misery was the last book Langston Hughes wrote. He died in May 1967, and the book was published posthumously in 1969. Looking at Arouni's black-and-white illustrations and reading the terse, emotion-packed captions, one cannot help commiserating with the predicament of a black child adjusting to the new world of integration of the 1960s. We feel the hope and dismay, the prejudice and indifference that characterized the decade. Langston Hughes writes in a gentle, funny, and sometimes melancholy style that still brings a nod of recognition.