Dorothy West
| Dorothy West | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
June 2, 1907 Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | August 16, 1998 Boston, United States |
| Occupation | Novelist, Columnist |
| Ethnicity | African American |
Dorothy West (June 2, 1907 – August 16, 1998) was a novelist and short story writer during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. She is best known for her novel The Living Is Easy, as well as many other short stories and essays, about the life of an upper-class black family.
West was born in Boston on June 2, 1907, to Isaac Christopher West, who was formerly enslaved and later became a successful businessman, and Rachel Pegues Benson, one of 22 children. West reportedly wrote her first story at the age of seven. Her first short story, "Promise and Fulfillment", was published in the Boston Post when she was 14 years old, and she won several local writing competitions. West attended Girls' Latin school, now called Boston Latin Academy, graduating at 16, and went on to Boston University and the Columbia University School of Journalism.
In 1926, she tied for second place in a writing contest sponsored by Opportunity, a journal published by the National Urban League, with her short story "The Typewriter". The person West tied with was future novelist Zora Neale Hurston.
Between 1928 and 1930, some of West's other early writings were published in the Saturday Evening Quill, a short-lived annual literary magazine that grew out of a literary club of the same name, of which West was a founding member.
Shortly before winning the Opportunity writing contest, West moved to Harlem with her cousin, the poet Helene Johnson. There West met other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and the novelist Wallace Thurman. West was quoted as saying in 1995: "We didn't know it was the Harlem Renaissance, because we were all young and all poor." Hughes gave West the nickname of "The Kid", by which she was known during her time in Harlem, and she was among a group of African Americans who travelled with him on a trip to Russia in 1932 for a film about American race relations. The film never came to fruition, though she and Hughes remained in Russia for a year.
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