Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances.
Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke was a Danish author who wrote in Danish and English. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countries; Tania Blixen, used in German-speaking countries; Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Adolf Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for 1½ years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp.
John Boynton Priestley was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.
The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, her first major literary success. The novel's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an intransigent young architect who battles against conventional standards and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation. Roark embodies what Rand believed to be the ideal man, and his struggle reflects Rand's belief that individualism is superior to collectivism.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1930.
John Henry is an American folk hero. An African American freedman, he is said to have worked as a "steel-driving man"—a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into a rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.
Ota Benga was a Mbuti man, known for being featured in an exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and as a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. Benga had been purchased from native African slave traders by the explorer Samuel Phillips Verner, a businessman searching for African people for the exhibition, who took him to the United States. While at the Bronx Zoo, Benga was allowed to walk the grounds before and after he was exhibited in the zoo's Monkey House. Benga was placed in a cage with an orangutan, regarded as both an offense to his humanity and a promotion of social Darwinism.
The Green Pastures is a play written in 1930 by Marc Connelly adapted from Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun (1928), a collection of stories written by Roark Bradford. The play was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930. It had the first all-black Broadway cast. The play and the film adaptation were generally well received and hailed by white drama and film critics. African-American intellectuals, cultural critics, and audiences were more critical of white author Connelly's claim to be presenting an authentic view of black religious thought.
Maryse Condé was a French novelist, critic, and playwright from the French Overseas department and region of Guadeloupe. She was also an academic, whose teaching career took her to West Africa and North America, as well as the Caribbean and Europe. As a writer, Condé is best known for her novel Ségou (1984–1985).
The Fountainhead is a 1949 American black-and-white drama film produced by Henry Blanke, directed by King Vidor, and starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Robert Douglas and Kent Smith. The film is based on the bestselling 1943 novel of the same name by Ayn Rand, who also wrote the adaptation. Although Rand's screenplay was used with minimal alterations, she later criticized the editing, production design and acting.
Jerry Pinkney was an American illustrator and writer of children's literature. Pinkney illustrated over 100 books since 1964, including picture books, nonfiction titles and novels. Pinkney's works addressed diverse themes and were usually done in watercolors.
African-American folktales are the storytelling and oral history of enslaved African Americans during the 1700s-1900s. Prevalent themes in African-American folktales include tricksters, life lessons, heartwarming tales, and slavery. African Americans created folktales that spoke about the hardships of slavery and told stories of folk spirits that could outwit their slaveholders and defeat their enemies. These folk stories gave hope to enslaved people that folk spirits would liberate them from slavery. Folktales have been used to perpetuate negative stereotypes about the African American community. From Minstrel shows to academic journals. One of these heroes that they looked up to was the charming High John the Conqueror, who was a cunning trickster against his slave masters. He often empowered newly freed slaves, saying that if they needed him, his spirit would be in a local root. Other common figures in African-American folktales include Anansi, Brer Rabbit, and Uncle Monday. Many folktales are unique to African-American culture, while others are influenced by African, European, and Native American tales. Even today in Hip-Hop, we see the effects of African American Folklore. Tropes like Badman and Trickster have influenced the characteristics and themes seen in modern day hip hop like gangsters and pimps.
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin, which are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam.
The Green Pastures is a 1936 American film depicting stories from the Bible as visualized by black characters. It starred Rex Ingram, Oscar Polk, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. It was based on the 1928 novel Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun by Roark Bradford and the 1930 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Marc Connelly.
The Old Maid is a 1934 play by American playwright Zoë Akins, adapted from Edith Wharton's 1924 novella of the same name. The play as published has six "episodes", covering twenty-one years of time. It has a large cast, and three settings; one is used for the last four episodes (scenes). The story concerns two women, cousins, who allow rancor over a lost love to become a struggle for the illegitimate daughter of one.
Stan Lee was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Comics which later became Marvel Comics. He was Marvel's primary creative leader for two decades, expanding it from a small publishing house division to a multimedia corporation that dominated the comics and film industries.
Roark Whitney Wickliffe Bradford was an American short story writer and novelist.
"The Green Pastures" was an American television play first broadcast on NBC on October 17, 1957, as part of the television series Hallmark Hall of Fame. It was adapted from Marc Connelly's 1930 Pulitzer Prize–winning play which was in turn adapted from Roark Bradford's Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun (1928). It was one of five programs nominated as Best Program of the Year at the 10th Primetime Emmy Awards.
