Home to Harlem
When it appeared in 1928, this became the first novel by a Black American writer to reach the bestseller lists, and it still crackles with the energy of Harlem’s cabarets, buffet flats, and back rooms. Jake Brown, a longshoreman who walked away from the army in wartime France, comes home to New York carrying the memory of one night with a woman named Felice, and much of the book follows his loose search for her. Alongside Jake runs Ray, a Haitian intellectual who cannot settle into the life around him. McKay drew fire from critics like W. E. B. Du Bois for dwelling on nightlife and vice, yet readers loved its warmth and swing. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.
About the Author
Claude McKay (1889-1948) was a Jamaican-born writer and a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. A poet and novelist, he traveled through Europe, North Africa, and the Soviet Union, and his candid fiction and militant verse shaped Black writing across the diaspora.
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