Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew the musicians and dancers, the drunks and dope fiends. In Harlem he was a rising young poet--at the center of the 'Harlem Renaissance.'

Arnold Rampersad writes in his incisive new introduction to The Big Sea, an American classic: 'This is American writing at its best--simpler than Hemingway; as simple and direct as that of another Missouri-born writer...Mark Twain.'

Cover design by Sara Eisenman. Cover photograph by Roy DeCarava © Sherry Turner DeCarava