Where the Wild Grape Grows: Selected Writings, 1930—1950

The first book-length study of Dorothy West, now with new writings and insights   

Originally published in 2005, WheretheWildGrapeGrows:SelectedWritings, 1930–1950 was the first book-length study of Dorothy West’s work, providing a rich and insightful profile of one of the last surviving members of the Harlem Renaissance.   

Although West (1907–1998) is often remembered for her novels of Boston’s African American community and her lifelong ties to Martha’s Vineyard, her career was also shaped by her formative years in New York, where she moved among the era’s most influential writers, artists, and political figures, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and many others. Cynthia Davis and Verner D. Mitchell document these early decades with care, recovering out-of-print, little-known, and unpublished works, alongside evocative family photographs, to illuminate West’s distinctive voice and vision.  

This expanded second edition includes three important pieces not featured in the first edition: West’s story “Cook,” which foreshadows tropes of racial and gendered double consciousness and geographic mobility later developed in her novels; and her two Russian texts, “Room in Red Square” and “Russian Correspondence.” This new edition situates West’s writings within the larger history of African American artists’ fascination with and ambivalence toward the U.S.S.R. The editors also extend their analysis beyond West’s early life to consider her final three decades, a period of renewed creativity and recognition.  

With a revised, enhanced introduction and a richer selection of West’s writings, this updated second edition is an indispensable resource for understanding the full scope of Dorothy West’s life, art, and enduring legacy.  

DOROTHY WEST was born in Boston in 1907 and died on Martha's Vineyard in 1998.  

CYNTHIA DAVIS is professor of English at San Jacinto College. Together, she and Dr. Mitchell have published seven books, primarily on women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Their most recent volume is In Flaming Letters: Lucia Pitts, Poet of the Six Triple Eight.  

VERNER D. MITCHELL is professor of English at the University of Memphis and editor of This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson, Poet of the Harlem Renaissance.