Carlene Hatcher Polite (August 28, 1932 – December 7, 2009) was an American writer.

Early life

Carlene Hatcher trained at the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and then danced professionally from 1955 to 1963 in New York and Detroit. She also worked for

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

organizations, including the Detroit Council for Human Rights and the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

Writer

In 1964, Polite moved to Paris where her first book ''The Flagellants'' was published in French in 1966, and was subsequently published in English in 1967. The book received critical acclaim, with

Mel Watkins Melville Henry Watkins (May 15, 1932 – April 2, 2020) was a Canadian political economist and activist and professor emeritus of economics and political science at the University of Toronto. He was a founder and co-leader with James Laxer o ...

in ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' stating it was "a complex, scathing and often brilliant depiction of the disintegration of a black couple’s relationship," and that it "was among the first fictional works by a black woman to focus directly on the theme of the sometimes bitter antagonism between black men and women." Polite published her second book ''Sister X and the Victims of Foul Play'', about the investigation into the death of a black nightclub dancer in Paris, in 1975.

Later years

Polite joined the University at Buffalo in 1971, where she taught creative writing, African American history and literature until her retirement in 2000. She became tenured and served on committees, as well as chairing the American Studies Department for a short while. Her classroom assignments often centered on books such as ''The African Origin of Civilization'' by

Cheikh Anta Diop Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December 1923 – 7 February 1986) was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. Diop's work is considered foundational to the the ...

, ''Stolen Legacy'' by

George G.M. James George Granville Monah James (November 9, 1893 – June 30, 1956) was a Guyanese Americans, Guyanese-American historian and author, known for his 1954 book ''Stolen Legacy'', which argues that Greek philosophy and Ancient Greek religion, religion o ...

and other Afrocentric works. Her writing assignments included four standard papers, one page each that served as mid-term and final papers—centering on being in love, falling out of love, and being the opposite gender. In her tenure at the university, she only used two teaching assistants (John Ransom and Kyle Phoenix (née Brian Kyle Doyle) both later published authors), feeling that their personal abilities, writing interests and knowledge were sufficient for her classroom needs. She died December 7, 2009.

Selected works

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Polite, Carlene Hatcher 1932 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American novelists African-American novelists American women novelists Novelists from Michigan 20th-century American women writers University at Buffalo faculty American women academics 20th-century African-American women writers 20th-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women

Early life

Writer

Later years

Selected works

Further reading

References