Combining scholarship covering one hundred fifty years of novel writing in the U.S., newly commissioned essays examine eighty African American novels. They include well-known works as well as writings recently recovered or acknowledged. The collection features essays on the slave narrative, coming of age, vernacular modernism, and the post-colonial novel to help readers gain a better appreciation of the African American novel's diversity and complexity. "Considered separately, the essays in this book are significant works of criticism examining a broad range of the issues implicated in African American literary history. Viewed as a whole, they engage in the kind of open reading 'companion' editor Maryemma Graham cautions is our best approach to the African American novel--one that does not flinch at the vastness of the project." North Dakota Quarterly, Lisa Trochmann, University of Minnesota The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel presents landmark essays combining new and current scholarship covering one hundred fifty years of novel writing in the U.S. These newly commissioned essays examine eighty African American novels-the well-known and those recently recovered or acknowledged--grouped in terms of theme, structure, period, and influence, and in terms of their relationship to relevant traditions. Discussions of the slave narrative, coming of age, vernacular modernism, and the post-colonial novel are intended to help readers gain a better appreciation of the novel's diversity and complexity.