Background
Leon Richard Forrest was born on January 8, 1937, in Chicago, Illinois, United States, into a middle-class family. He was a son of a Catholic mother and a Baptist father.
6220 S. Stony Island Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60615, United States
Hyde Park High School
430 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
Roosevelt University
Chicago, Illinois, United States
University of Chicago
633 Clark St, Evanston, IL 60208, United States
Northwestern University
6220 S. Stony Island Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60615, United States
Hyde Park High School
430 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
Roosevelt University
Chicago, Illinois, United States
University of Chicago
Carl Sandburg Award
633 Clark St, Evanston, IL 60208, United States
Northwestern University
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006C42LA/?tag=2022091-20
1973
(Leon Forrest, acclaimed author of Divine Days, uses a rem...)
Leon Forrest, acclaimed author of Divine Days, uses a remarkable verbal intensity to evoke human tragedy, injustice, and spirituality in his writing. As Toni Morrison has said, "All of Forrest's novels explore the complex legacy of Afro-Americans. Like an insistent tide this history . . . swells and recalls America's past. . . . Brooding, hilarious, acerbic and profoundly valued life has no more astute observer than Leon Forrest." All of that is on display here in a novel that give readers a breathtaking view of the human experience, filled with humor and pathos. Leon Forrest, acclaimed author of Divine Days, uses a remarkable verbal intensity to evoke human tragedy, injustice, and spirituality in his writing. As Toni Morrison has said, "All of Forrest's novels explore the complex legacy of Afro-Americans. Like an insistent tide this history . . . swells and recalls America's past. . . . Brooding, hilarious, acerbic and profoundly valued life has no more astute observer than Leon Forrest." All of that is on display here in a novel that give readers a breathtaking view of the human experience, filled with humor and pathos.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394499115/?tag=2022091-20
1977
(A ninety-one-year-old Black woman tells her story of pass...)
A ninety-one-year-old Black woman tells her story of passage from slavery to freedom to her twenty-one-year-old grandson
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394529650/?tag=2022091-20
1984
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0929968247/?tag=2022091-20
1992
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155921080X/?tag=2022091-20
(In the wake of his watershed novel Divine Days, Leon Fore...)
In the wake of his watershed novel Divine Days, Leon Forest began an even more ambitious project, a collection of novellas that he hoped would be the culmination of his life's work and of the fictional world of Forest County, which he had created in his five earlier novels. Although slowed by devastating illness in 1997, Forrest's labor on his masterwork continued; while the novel assumed a focus tighter than he had originally intended, Forrest felt just before his untimely death that he had succeeded in bringing a unified vision to the manuscript of Meteor in the Madhouse. Meteor in the Madhouse is a novel made up of five interconnected novellas framed by an account of the last days in the life of journalist Joubert Antoine Jones, a character immortalized in Divine Days. The central relationship in the novel is that of Joubert and his adoptive kin and fellow writer Leonard Foster. A symbol of the struggle for freedom and equality, Leonard's search for truth -- leading him into political agitation, cultish religion, and eventual death from drug addiction -- immerses Joubert in feelings of guilt and frustration when he is unable to save his friend and mentor. As Joubert reflects on Leonard's death, he is both haunted and rejuvenated by the characters and episodes of their shared past. We meet the women in Joubert's life: foster mother Lucasta Jones, whose aesthetic and erotic potential goes unfulfilled; Lucasta's sister Gussie, irrepressible in her zest for life; and Jessie Ma Fay Battle Barker, known for her indomitable spirit and largesse. Joubert recalls his visits with Leonard and Leonard's further breakdown in the face of humorous memories from their youth: the behavior of theDeep Brown Study Eggheads who inhabited the wonderfully diverse rooming house near Joubert's alma mater; and the characters fre- quenting Fountain's House of the Dead -- a funeral home by day and a brothel by night. As Joubert and his relations tackle the forces of love, lust, alcohol, drugs, violence, and family, Joubert becomes the symbol of the soul's search for authenticity. With introductions by editors John G. Cawelti and Merle Drown, Meteor in the Madhouse emerges as Forrest's most vivid portrayal of the great diversity of urban African American life.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810151146/?tag=2022091-20
Leon Richard Forrest was born on January 8, 1937, in Chicago, Illinois, United States, into a middle-class family. He was a son of a Catholic mother and a Baptist father.
Forrest was educated at the Wendell Phillips grade school and the Hyde Park High School. He studied at the Wilson Junior College for a year. He also attended classes at the Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago.
Forrest began teaching at the Northwestern University as a professor of African American Studies in 1973. In 1985 he became chair of the school’s African American Studies department, a post that he held until 1994. Other teaching positions during his career included work at the Yale University, the Wesleyan University, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Among his novels are There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden, The Bloodworth Orphans, Two Wings to Veil My Face, and Divine Days. He also penned a collection of essays titled Relocations of the Spirit. His other writings included an opera libretto and a play. A collection of his novellas was awaiting publication at the time of his death.
Leon Forrest was among the most innovative and ambitious African American fiction writers of the twentieth century. Forrest's Two Wings to Veil My Face earned him the Carl Sandburg Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library as well as a Society of Midland Authors Award. He was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2013.
(In the wake of his watershed novel Divine Days, Leon Fore...)
(Leon Forrest, acclaimed author of Divine Days, uses a rem...)
1977(A ninety-one-year-old Black woman tells her story of pass...)
1984
