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A Raisin In the Sun:the Unfilmed Original Screenplay
[Paperback - 1992]
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Category: Literature
Sub-category: Drama
Additional Category: Acting & Movie Making - Sociology
Publisher: Plume | ISBN: 9780452267763 | Pages: 256
Shipping Weight: .221 | Dimensions: 5.2 x .75 x 7.9 inches

Under the editorship of the late Robert Nemiroff, with a provocative and thoughtful introduction by preeminent African-American scholar Margaret B. Wilkerson and a commentary by Spike Lee, this completely restored screenplay is the accurate and authoritative edition of Lorraine Hansberry's script and a testament to her unparalled accomplishment as a Black artist.

The 1961 film version of A Raisin in the Sun, with a screenplay by the author, Lorraine Hansberry, won an award at the Cannes Film Festival even though one-third of the actual screenplay Hansberry had written had been cut out. The film did essentially bring Hansberry's extraordinary play to the screen, but it failed to fulfill her cinematic vision.

Now, with this landmark edition of Lorraine Hansberry's original script for the movie of A Raisin in the Sun that audiences never viewed, readers have at hand an epic, eloquent work capturing not only the life and dreams of a Black family, but the Chicago—and the society—that surround and shape them.

Important changes in dialogue and exterior shots, a stunning shift of focus to her male protagonist, and a dramatic rewriting of the final scene show us an artist who understood and used the cinematic medium to transform a stage play into a different art form—a profound and powerful film.

People know American playwrightLorraine Vivian Hansberryfor her playA Raisin in the Sun(1959).This writer inspired "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," song ofNina Simone.She, the first such Black woman, wrote a play, performed on Broadway. Her best known work highlights the lives of Blacks under racial segregation in Chicago. Family of the author struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant and eventually provoking the Supreme Court caseHansberry v. Lee. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" byLangston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?"Hansberry moved to city of New York and afterward worked at the pan-Africanist newspaperFreedom, where she dealt with intellectuals, such asPaul RobesonandW.E.B. du Bois. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggle for liberation and their impact on the world. People identified Hansberry as a lesbian, and several of her works concern sexual freedom, an important topic. She died of cancer at the age of 34 years.

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