Description
Kinohi Nishikawa contends that black pulp fiction was built on white readers' fears of the feminization of society-and the appeal of black masculinity as a way to counter it. In essence, it was the original form of blaxploitation: a strategy of mass-marketing race to suit the reactionary fantasies of a white audience. But while chauvinism and misogyny remained troubling yet constitutive aspects of this literature, from 1973 onward, Holloway House moved away from publishing sleaze for a white audience to publishing solely for black readers. The standard account of this literary phenomenon is based almost entirely on where this literature ended up: in the hands of black, male, working-class readers. When it closed, Holloway House was synonymous with genre fiction written by black authors for black readers-a field of cultural production that Nishikawa terms the black literary underground. But as Street Players demonstrates, this cultural authenticity had to be created, promoted, and in some cases made up, and there is a story of exploitation at the heart of black pulp fiction's origins that cannot be ignored.
Book Information
ISBN 9780226586915
Author Kinohi Nishikawa
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 425g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 15mm * 2mm