Jessie Redmon Fauset
Jessie Redmon Fauset(1882–1961) was an American author, editor, and educator best known for her influential role in the Harlem Renaissance. As literary editor of NAACP’s magazine,The Crisis, Fauset shaped the career of notable writers like Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Bennett. Despite her important role in 20th-century American literature and surprisingly modern takes on marriage, sex, family, and career, Fauset’s books are largely forgotten and out of print today.
In her own novels, Fauset often examined intersectional issues of race and gender, class, and identity through the lens of middle class American life. One of her best-known novels,Plum Bun(1928), is a coming-of-age story about a young Black woman who passes as white. Fauset also published three other novels:There Is Confusion(1924),The Chinaberry Tree(1931), andComedy, American Style(1933).
