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The
Cotillion
Author Biography
John
Oliver Killens
John
Oliver Killens (1916- 1987) was born in Macon, Georgia
and grew up listening to his great-grandmother's tales
of slavery. Killens was a close friend of Dr. Martin
Luther King and other civil rights activists, and participated
in the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. Killens
published six novels, numerous essays and plays, and
was influential in helping to form the careers of many
African American writers, including Dr. Maya Angelou
and Rosa Guy.
Killens
taught at Columbia and Howard Universities, founded
the Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College,
co-founded the Harlem Writers Guild, and served as Vice
President of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters.
He was also a board member of the National Center for
Afro-American Artists, and a member of the Black Filmmakers
Hall of Fame. Killens has been inducted into the Writer's
Hall of Fame at the University of Georgia.
Novels
available in the Coffee House Press Black Arts Movement
Series:
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