Home to Harlem

Home to Harlem, the first published novel by the Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay, follows the life of Jake, an African-American longshoreman who enlists with the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I before deserting and returning to Harlem. Upon his return, Jake indulges in all of the sensual pleasures Harlem has to offer, including a series of sexual entanglements.

Owing to its sexually explicit depiction of Harlem nightlife, Home to Harlem received a polarized reception from other African-American authors. Langston Hughes celebrated it as a book “which ought to give a second youth to the Negro Vogue,” whereas W. E. B. Du Bois declared that “after the dirtier parts of its filth I feel distinctly like taking a bath.” It remains a classic novel of the Harlem Renaissance.