Dixon, Melvin
Dixon, Melvin
May 29, 1950
October 26, 1992
Born in Stamford, Connecticut, novelist and poet Melvin Dixon received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1971 and his Ph.D. in American Studies from Brown University in 1975. He taught African-American literature, modern drama, and creative writing at Fordham University, Williams College, Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and the CUNY Graduate Center, where he was professor of English from 1986 to 1992. As a critic Dixon helped to shape the emergent field of comparative African-American literary studies. His major critical work, Ride Out the Wilderness: Geography and Identity in Afro-American Literature, was published in 1987. He also translated two important volumes from the French: Geneviève Fabre's Drumbeats, Masks, and Metaphor (1983), a seminal study of contemporary African-American theater, and The Collected Poems of Léopold Sédar Senghor (1987).
In addition to his success as a critic, Dixon was an award-winning creative writer. His collection of his own verse, Change of Territory (1983), reflects his spiritual itinerary and development as a black writer; drawing upon diverse travels and sojourns in France, the Antilles, and Senegal, these poems reenact his pilgrimage to many different African-American historical sites. His first novel, Trouble the Water (1989)—which received the Charles H. and N. Mildred Nilon Excellence in Minority Fiction Award—poetically chronicles the dramatic homecoming of a black protagonist to his southern roots. By contrast, his second novel, Vanishing Rooms (1991), is a terse story set in New York about the agonies and rewards of love and friendship; it is one of the few major works in the African-American literary tradition that focuses on issues of black male homosexuality. Shortly before his death in 1992, Dixon completed a volume of poetry titled Love's Instruments, about his experience of living with AIDS. He also completed an authorized translation of the complete poems of Léopold Sédar Senghor.
See also Literary Criticism, U.S.; Literature of the United States
Bibliography
Fabre, Michel. From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840–1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
McHenry, Susan. Review of Vanishing Rooms, by Melvin Dixon. Black Issues Book Review 3, no. 3 (May 2001): 24.
Pinson, Hermine D. "Geography and Identity in Melvin Dixon's 'Change of Territory.'" MELUS 21, no. 1 (spring 1996): 99–111.
michel fabre (1996)
Updated bibliography