Home to Harlem

One of the finest and best-known novels of the Harlem Renaissance Claude McKay’s first novel, Home to Harlem, was published in 1928 during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. McKay portrays Harlem post-WWI, through Jake, an African American longshoreman who deserts the U.S. army and returns to his home in Harlem, and Ray, a Haitian intellectual expatriate. With his use of dialect, McKay portrays these men and other working-class characters who try to stay afloat in a complex world of isolation, racial discrimination, and excitement drawn from Harlem’s jazz nightlife. Home to Harlem sparked controversy among Black middle-class critics, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, who considered it reductive and stereotypical, while other critics such as Langston Hughes embraced it for its frankness and for the relevance of McKay’s reflections on the Black working-class experience and the social and racial inequalities of the day. This debate within the Harlem Renaissance literary world and curiosity about Harlem from white readers drove Home to Harlem to become the first commercial bestseller by an African American novelist.