Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones]’s 1964 play

Dutchman

put the twenty-nine-year-old writer on the map. It is, in the words of critic Werner Sollors, “Baraka’s most familiar as well as his most intensely analyzed and highly praised play” and “synonymous with Baraka’s fame as a ‘protest writer’ in the 1960s” (Sollors 1978: 117). Baraka had already been a fixture on the Greenwich Village beat and bohemian scene since the late 1950s, when he and his first wife, Hettie Cohen, founded Totem Press and the magazine

Yugen

, important outlets for beat and New York School writing. Baraka’s own work had been included in Donald Allen’s influential 1960 anthology

The New American Poetry

, and the following year he began printing the

Floating Bear

newsletter with fellow poet Diane di Prima.

1367 words

Citation: Fazzino, Jimmy. "Dutchman". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 September 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5474, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5474 Dutchman 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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