Editor of FIRE!!, Thurman was the author of two important Harlem Renaissance novels, THE BLACKER THE BERRY and INFANTS OF THE SPRING. The first of these describes the travails of a dark-skinned woman trying to make her way in the color-conscious world of the black bourgeoisie. It was among the earliest books to explore in depth the self-hatred generated within the Black community by the internalization of white standards of physical beauty. INFANTS OF THE SPRING is a roman à clef featuring as characters Thurman himself, Richard Bruce Nugent, and the other members of the "niggeratti"--the younger group of writers and artists which created FIRE!!. An important critic, and one of the first African-American editors to be employed by a mainstream publishing house, Thurman also co-authored HARLEM, a popular Broadway play based on "Cordelia the Crude," a story which appeared in FIRE!!. Thurman died of tuberculosis aggravated by alcoholism in 1934 at the age of 32.
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