Roark Bradford Biography and List of Works

Roark Bradford was born in Lauderdale county, Tennessee. He was the eighth of eleven children of Richard Clarence Bradford and Patricia Adelaide (Tillman) Bradford, both of whom were descended from families prominent in colonial and Southern history. Bradford had little formal education. During World War I he served in the U.S. army and became an instructor in military science and tactics at Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College before being discharged in 1920. He then worked as a reporter for the Atlanta Georgian from 1920 to 1922.

In 1924 Bradford moved to New Orleans, where he was a staff member of the Times-Picayune. From 1926 he devoted himself entirely to writing fiction. Bradford's stories appeared in the New York World and in other magazines.

In 1942-46 Bradford served as a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve, with assignment to the Bureau of Aeronautics Training, Navy Department. In 1946 he accepted a visiting lectureship in the English Department of Tulane University. While serving in French West Africa with the Navy in 1943, Bradford contracted amebiasis. He died in New Orleans on November 13, 1948.

Bradford's works of fiction and folklore are based on his childhood's contacts with African-American preachers, musicians, and storytellers in his father's plantations. His first book, OL' MAN ADAM AN' HIS CHILLUN (1928) was collected from stories first published in the World. The stories were adapted by Marc Connelly into the play Green Pastures, which won a Pulizer Prize in 1930. Brandford also wrote novels, which depict the plight of African-Americans in its historical perspective, such as THIS SIDE OF JORDAN (1929), but the majority of Bradford's work is light hearted and humorous.

Under the influence of civil-rights consciousness, Bradford's stories have been re-evaluated: his stereotypical images of African-Americans and his patronizing attitude have been criticized in particular.

The Green Pastures - film 1936, dir. by William Keighley, Marc Connelly, starring Rex Ingram, Oscar Polk, Eddie Anderson, Frank Wilson, George Reed. - Humorous folk version of Old Testament stories as seen through the eyes of blacks of the southern United States. The film has been attacked for perpetuating unacceptable stereotypes; cunningly adapted for the screen in a series of dramatic scenes from Bradford's tales. "This is as good a religious play as one is likely to get in this age from a practiced New York writer." (Graham Greene) - The Green Pastures - play, first produced in New York, Mansfield Theatre, February 26, 1930. All-black cast. The Lord, a kind hearted patriarch, enjoys a fish fry with His angels in heaven. God mingles among his creatures, and becomes angered by their sins. He sends the unrepentant Cain wandering, and generations later the Lord finds sin still rampant. In anger the Lord sends down the Deluge. But wickedness continues to prevail. When corruption has spread among the chosen people, the Lord renounces man. In the end, however, the belief of one man, Hezdra, and the suffering of Jesus for all men, moves the Lord to become a God of love and mercy.

For further reading: World Authors 1900-1950, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith, Andrew C. Kimmens (1996, vol 1); The History of Southern Literature, ed. by L.D. Rubin et al. (1985); The Smiling Phoenix by W. Hall (1965) - Note: Marc Connelly (1890-1980), an American director, producer, and playwright, won the Pulitzer Prize for the fantasy The Green Pastures. Connelly's collaboration with George S. Kaufman resulted in a series of successful comedies, among them Dulcy (1921), To the Ladies (1922), Merton of the Movies (1922), and Beggar on Horseback (1924).

Books by Roark Bradford