ampampnbspHemingway and the Black Renaissance edited by Gary Edward Holcomb and Charles Scruggs explores a conspicuously overlooked topic Hemingways wideranging influence on writers from the Harlem Renaissance to the present day. An observable whos who of black writersRalph Ellison James Baldwin Langston Hughes Claude McKay Wallace Thurman Chester Himes Alex la Guma Derek Walcott Gayl Jones and morecite Hemingway as a vital influence. This inspiration extends from style Hemingways minimalist art to themes of isolation and loneliness the dilemma of the expatriate and the terrifying experience of living in a time of war. The relationship nevertheless was not unilateral as in the case of Jean Toomers 1923 hybrid shortstory cycle Cane which influenced Hemingways collagelike 1925 In Our Time. ampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbspampampnbsp Just as important as Hemingways influence indeed is the complex intertextuality the multilateral conversation between Hemingway and key black writers. The diverse praises by black writers for Hemingway in fact signify that the white authors prose rises out of the same intensely American concerns that their own writings are formed on the integrity of the human subject faced with social alienation psychological violence and psychic disillusionment. An understanding of this literary kinship ultimately initiates not only an appreciation of Hemingways stimulus but also a perception of an insistent black presence at the core of Hemingways writing.