James Alan McPherson, an essayist, short-story writer and critic, is among the generation of African American writers and intellectuals who were inspired and mentored by Ralph Ellison. Ralph Ellison was a highly acclaimed scholar and writer. Ellison used racial issues to express universal dilemmas of identity and self-discovery, but didn’t use his writing as a propaganda tool to heighten his people. "Literature is colorblind," he once said “and it should be read and judged in a larger framework.” Many writers disagreed with his beliefs, but McPherson, like Ellison, sees African American culture as integrally connected with the "white" culture. McPherson doesn’t consider himself a "black writer", but rather compares himself to other practitioners of the American short fiction. Even though his writing is drawn from his experiences as a black man, he rejects the notion that black or white fiction must necessarily concern certain black or white topics.
James Alan McPherson was......
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