Missouri to publish a new collection of stories by Rudolph Fisher

Rudolph Fisher was a great writer. He wrote short stories that depicted life in Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, the so-called Jazz Age, with a rare sense of humor, grace and objectivity. He was also a true a renaissance man: -- a full-time doctor, musician, and orator, he also wrote two novels and a number of book reviews and scientific articles. One of the novels is a mystery, a favorite of mine published years ago by University of Michigan Press, called The Conjure Man Dies.

The University of Missouri Press anthology collects all of his short stories, and is called The City of Refuge: The Collected Stories of Rudolph Fisher. It’s edited with an introduction by John McCluskey, Jr., a professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University. This is a new and expanded edition.

This definitive collection of stories by Fisher shows his remarkable range as a writer. It includes seven unpublished stories that take up such themes as martial infidelity and passing for black, and relate the further adventures Jinx and Bubber, characters that appeared in Fisher’s novels. In all Fisher offers vibrant tales of inner-city life, laced with humor from black folklore, and infused with music from Harlem’s many cabarets, speakeasies, and nightclubs. It offers a multifaceted portrait of Harlem that is unmatched in depth and range by Fisher’s contemporaries or successors, as the New York Times Book Review said, “one feels, smells, and tastes his Harlem; its people come alive and one cares about them.”

This book also includes a famous article Fisher wrote called “The Caucasian Storms Harlem,” which describes the craze for black music and dance. McCluskey’s introduction has been updated to include the new works, and places Fisher’s work and career in a broader context of American writing during the 1920s.

Hopefully this new edition will gain Fisher a wider readership, and enhance his stature as a major American writer. Booklist noted about Fisher’s work, it shows “the complexity of black urban life in its encounter with the dangers and delights of the city.”