{"product_id":"dark-laughter-the-satiric-art-of-oliver-w-harrington-9781604733778","title":"Dark Laughter: The Satiric Art of Oliver W. Harrington","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was none other than Langston Hughes who called Oliver Wendell Harrington America's greatest black cartoonist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet largely because he chose to live as an expatriate far from the American mainstream, he has been almost entirely overlooked by contemporary historians and scholars of African American culture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBorn in 1912 and a graduate of the Yale School of Fine Arts, he was a prolific contributor of humorous and editorial cartoons to the black press in the 1930s and 1940s, but he achieved fame for his creation of a cartoon panel called \u003cem\u003eDark Laughter\u003c\/em\u003e, a satire of Harlem society and featuring Bootsie, a character in the tradition of the wise fool. Bootsie became widely known and loved wherever black newspapers appeared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor airing strong anti-racist views, Harrington was targeted during the McCarthy era. And in 1951, he was self-exiled in Paris. In 1961, he found himself trapped behind the Berlin Wall. But, he chose to remain in East Germany. His powerful political cartoons were published in East German magazines and in the American Communist newspaper \u003cem\u003eThe Daily World\u003c\/em\u003e. He became a favorite among students and intellectuals in the Eastern Bloc. In America he was mainly forgotten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere, selected from the Walter O. Evans Collection of African-American Art, is an omnibus of Harrington's best cartoons from the past four decades. It highlights his exceptional talent, his potent impact with editorial comment and social criticism, and his deserving of acclaim in his native land.","brand":"University Press of Mississippi","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51771189985623,"sku":"9781604733778","price":31.46,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/dark-laughter-the-satiric-art-of-oliver-w-harrington-9781604733778","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}