This is a panoramic critical study of more than a century of black literature, focusing on the novel to develop new ideas and literary criticism, aesthetics, and the role of the artist in society. The duel roles of the writer--as "combatant" against an oppressive society, and as creator of artifact, a familiar subject in the literature of criticism, is given new treatment here. Arguing persuasively against what he sees as the false dichotomy between "sociology" and "pure literature," Addison Gayle, Jr., takes the novel as his model in his discussion. All literature, but most particularly the novel, is the product of the writer's creative imagination, enhanced and filled out by political, social,and historical factors in his experience. Therefore, the presence of sociological statements is not merely legitimate in the novel but integral to it. Gayle takes the reader through more than a century of literature, offering highly controversial analysis of the works of both black and white writers, including James Baldwin, John A. Williams, Chester Himes, Normal Mailer, and William Styron.