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
Famous quotes containing the word cultural:
“If we can learn ... to look at the ways in which various groups appropriate and use the mass-produced art of our culture ... we may well begin to understand that although the ideological power of contemporary cultural forms is enormous, indeed sometimes even frightening, that power is not yet all-pervasive, totally vigilant, or complete.”
—Janice A. Radway (b. 1949)