Ann Petry has made an exceptionally
significant contribution to African-American literature and culture. Her stories
received a large amount of praise and reached millions of readers. In addition
to being one of the most successful authors in the category of protest
literature, Petry was also the first to bring major attention to the underrepresented
black female demographic. Her major works include three novels, four children’s
books, and a collection of short stories.
Petry became a successful writer
relatively quickly. Her second published story ever, “Like a Winding Sheet,” rapidly
spread nationwide. A year later she published her first novel, The Street, and received the prestigious
Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award. The
Street sold 1.5 million copies; no other black woman had even reached a
million.
The substantial sales of Petry’s
works can be partially attributed to her unique style that was able to reach wider
audiences, some of which had not been represented before. She was not afraid to
explore the complex interactions between race and gender, and the Street is also
considered the first novel by a black author to have such considerable focus on
motherhood.
As mentioned previously, she wrote books
for children as well. Not only that, many of those stories were told from the perspective
of a child, further demonstrating her skill for connecting with varied
audiences. The diversity doesn’t stop here; in a time where much of the literature
was originating from urban areas, Petry also wrote stories about rural towns and
stories that connected urban and rural scenes. Most of her later writing was
done in the small town of Old Saybrook, CT.
Reaching millions of people inherently
makes one’s work significant to the culture, but Petry’s impact on the art of literature was also
very real. Her works continued in the tradition of Richard Wright yet innovatively
added a twist of her own. Just like Wright popularized a concept, Petry popularized
a different approach with her unique style for others to follow suit.
Works Cited
Clark, Keith. “A
Distaff Dream Deferred? Ann Petry and the Art of Subversion.” African American
Review 26.3 (1992): 495-505. JSTOR. Web. 12 March. 2014.
Hicks, Heather J.
. "Rethinking Realism in Ann Petry’s The Street " MELUS 27.4 (2002):
89-105. JSTOR.
Horsley, Sarah K.
"Ann Petry." Web log post. Notable Women International. FemBio, 2008.
Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/ann-petry/>.
Petry, Ann. “Like
a Winding Sheet” The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New
York. W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. print.
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