Exhibit: “We are each other’s harvest” : Gwendolyn Brooks and the Formation of Black Literary Canon

This new exhibit at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library celebrates the 75th anniversary of Gwendolyn Brooks’s Annie Allen—the poetry collection that won the first Pulitzer Prize for literature by a Black author—and explores the rich history of Black literature’s emergence into the mainstream. The exhibit will be on display through May 2025.

Of interest to Caxton Club members:

• Gwendolyn Brooks was a member of the Caxton Club.
• Caxtonian Cait Coker is Curator and Associate Professor of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
• Caxtonian Lisa Wagner is the editor of the 75th Anniversary Edition of Annie Allen.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 346 Main Library

1408 W. Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL