Not Without Laughter
by Langston Hughes

256 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics

In this groundbreaking first novel from renowned American poet Langston Hughes, he paints a picture of a Black boy growing up in mostly white small-town Kansas. Sandy Rogers and his family must navigate the racial politics of this small community, and the challenges that accompany being one of the only Black families in town. Through this process, Hughes gives the reader a window onto the desires and attitudes of so many Black families during the 1930's, and onto the hardships they faced, not only in Kansas, but everywhere that America's troubled racial heritage reared its ugly head. A famous and famously important book from one of the Harlem Renaissance's best known poets.