Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature - Tapa dura

Sollor's wide learning establishes vast historical and international contexts for his subject ... its value for future scholarship in a variety of fields is beyond question. (Henry B Wonham, Comparative Literature Vol 51 no 3 Summer 1999)

Among scholars working in the area of 'ethnic' literatures, Werner Sollers deservedly enjoys considerable respect and critical acclaim... Thematic Explorations in Interracial Literature is essential reading for Americanists everywhere. It is a model of theoretical sophistication and methodological rigor, and will definitely serve as the chief basis for future studies in this vast and hitherto uncharted area. - Susan Castillo, University of Glasgow (REVIEW NOT LABELLED WITH JOURNAL!)

"Werner Sollors, who has shaped much of the current scholarly discourse on ethnicity and literature, has again opened a whole new territory for inspection in this book: the topic of interracial relationships in literature, a fascinating, forbidding, often suppressed, and indeed little researched topic. Neither Black Nor White Yet Both is a landmark that bears testimony to the rich and provocative tradition of miscegenation in art and literature. Sollors offers both a plethora of intriguing thematic explorations from Shakespeare to Kleist and Faulkner, and a cultural history of censorship on interracial literature. He is a masterful guide through this thorny, yet infatuating territory."―Frank Trommler, Professor of German & Comparitive Literature, University of Pennsylvania

This text's strength lies in its eclecticism: it draws on a variety of religious and ancient source texts - and ranges across continents. A thesis that is informed and informative. His intricate readings of myths and stories, like that of Inkle and Yarico, are fascinating. This is an important contribution to scholarship in racial and cultural studies. - Sharon Monteith in American Studies, Vol.33 No.1 1999.

Why can a "white" woman give birth to a "black" baby, while a "black" woman can never give birth to a "white" baby in the United States? What makes racial "passing" so different from social mobility? Why are interracial and incestuous relations often confused or conflated in literature, making "miscegenation" appear as if it were incest? Werner Sollors examines these questions and others in Neither Black Nor White Yet Both, a new and fully researched investigation of literary works that, in the past, have been read more for a black-white contrast of "either-or" than for an interracial realm of "neither, nor, both, and in-between". From the etymological origins of the term "race" to the cultural sources of the "Tragic Mulatto", and from the calculus of color to the retellings of an original plot, Sollors examines the theming of what we know about race. The book analyzes recurrent motifs in scientific and legal works as well as in fiction, drama, and poetry, considering such authors as Heliodorus, John Stedman, Buffon, Thomas Jefferson, Heinrich von Kleist, Victor Hugo, Aleksandr Sergeevic Puskin, Hans Christian Andersen, Lydia Marie Child, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Wells Brown, Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, Cirilo Villaverde, Aluisio Azevedo, Pauline Hopkins, Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset, William Faulkner, and Boris Vian. The discussions are accompanied by many illustrations, inviting comparisons between literature and the visual arts.