Cultural References
Given Broyard's stature in the literary world and discussions about his life after his death, numerous literary critics, such as Michiko Kakutani, Janet Maslin, Lorrie Moore, Charles Taylor, Touré, and Brent Staples, have made comparisons between the character Coleman Silk in Philip Roth's The Human Stain (2000) and Broyard. Some speculated that Roth had been inspired by Broyard's life, and commented on the larger issues of race and identity in American society. However, Roth stated in a 2008 interview that Broyard was not his source of inspiration. He explained that he had only learned about Broyard's black ancestry and choices from Gates' New Yorker article, published months after he had already started writing the novel.
Read more about this topic: Anatole Broyard
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“The rumor of a great city goes out beyond its borders, to all the latitudes of the known earth. The city becomes an emblem in remote minds; apart from the tangible export of goods and men, it exerts its cultural instrumentality in a thousand phases.”
—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)