UMBRA (no. 5) : LATIN/SOUL ANTHOLOGY

Final issue of the journal from the Society of Umbra, or Umbra Writers' Workshop. Umbra began in the early 1960s as a community of Black writers and artists that met in New York City's Lower East Side. Considered to precede and "presage" the Black Arts Movement, the group shared many of the same concerns (and members), considering the political implications of a Black stance towards arts and letters. From the first issue's foreword: "UMBRA is not another haphazard 'little literary' publication. UMBRA has a definite orientations: 1) the experience of being Negro, especially in America: and 2) that quality of human awareness often termed 'social consciousness.'" UMBRA would produce just five issues total over twice as many years, with the group splintering and separating many times over that decade. This final issue, titled "LATIN/SOUL ANTHOLOGY", both branches out from and centers on the group's home of New York City. In the issue's introduction, Henderson writes: "'LATIN-SOUL,' the term, has been in use for a while, mainly in the Black and Puerto-Rican areas of New York where both groups often jam to the same music: Latin and Soul. In the East you will often hear the words Black and Puerto Rican in connection with progressive coalition politics. In the West the Chicanos are the major Latin entity. The Mission district of San Francisco, California is totally Third World. Blacks, Chicanos, Jamaicans, Samoans, Okinawans, Japanese, Chinese, Nicaraguan, Chilean and even a small colony of Puerto Ricans. The Puerto Rican, of African and Carribean--Indian bloos, is the living link between Black and Latin cultures." Included in this issue are Nicolas Guillen, Cesar Vallejo, Pedro Pietri, Ishmael Reed, Bob Kaufman, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Roque Dalton, Carmen Alegria, Cecil M. Brown, Thulani, Barbara Chase-Riboud, and many more. Good to Fair condition. Wraps soiled and rubbed, with some creasing throughout; wraps and contents dampstained throughout entire upper fore corner edges (approx 4" lessening to 2.5" from back to front); binding remains strong and contents complete and readable. Perfect-bound in glossy illustrated wraps. 8-1/2 x 11 inches. 148pp First Edition, first printing of 500 copies.…