Arna Wendell Bontemps

Bontemps, Arna Wendell (1902–73), African-American author of more than 30 books on black culture, including biographies, children's stories, history, literary criticism, novels, and poetry. He and Countee Cullen, a novelist and poet, adapted his God Sends Sunday (1931) into a musical comedy, St. Louis Woman (1946). An earlier novel, Black Thunder (1936) describes a slave revolt in Virginia. Drums at Dusk (1938) deals with a slave revolt in Haiti. Bontemps was a public school teacher and principal 1924–38. From 1943 until his death, he was a college professor and librarian.