DuBose Heyward (August 31, 1885-June 16, 1940) is best-known as the author of the 1924 novel Porgy, which became the foundation of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. A Charleston insurance and real-estate salesman with a long-standing and serious interest in literature, he became financially independent and abandoned his business to devote full time to writing.
Langston Hughes called Heyward one who saw, "with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that makes them come alive." Biographer James M. Hutchisson characterizes Porgy as "the first major southern novel to portray blacks without condescension" and states that the libretto to Porgy and Bess was largely Heyward's work. Others, however, have noted that the characters in Porgy, though viewed sympathetically, are still viewed for the most part as stereotypes.
Heyward wrote another novel set in Catfish Row, Mamba's Daughters , and wrote the screenplays to the 1933 screen adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones and the 1934 screen adaptation of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth.
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Last updated: 09-02-2005 11:52:29
