Claude McKay - Unknown Manuscript

Unknown Manuscript

A previously unknown manuscript of a 1941 novel by McKay was authenticated in 2012. The manuscript, Amiable With Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem, was discovered by Jean-Christophe Cloutier in the Samuel Roth Papers, a previously untouched university archive at Columbia University in 2009. The novel centers on the ideas and events (like Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia) that animated Harlem on the cusp of World War II. Working in collaboration, Mr. Cloutier and Professor Brent Hayes Edwards successfully authenticated the manuscript, and have received permission from the McKay estate to publish the novel, a satire set in 1936, with an introduction about how it was found and its provenance verified.