Hughes, Langston


A twentieth-century African-American author known for his poems about the black experience in the United States. He was a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Notes for Hughes, Langston

A famous line from one of his poems is “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” Lorraine Hansbury, a celebrated African-American playwright, named her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, after this line.

Words Nearby Hughes, Langston

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.