Der US-amerikanische Poet und Bürgerrechtler Amiri Baraka ist gestorben

Der am 7. Oktober 1934 in Newark, New Jersey, geborene US-amerikanische Lyriker, Dramatiker, Musikkritiker, Prosaautor und Bürgerrechtler Amiri Baraka (Bild) ist am 9. Januar 2014 ebendort gestorben.

Foto: David Sasaki, 2007 – CC-Lizenz: Namensnennung 2.0 US-amerikanisch (nicht portiert) – Zur Originaldatei: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Amiri_Baraka.jpg

Er war einer der radikalsten US-Literaten der 1960er- und 1970er-Jahre. Er beeinflusste zahlreiche Dichter und Schriftsteller, galt aber auch als Wegbereiter des Rap und Hip-Hop. Seine Anhängerschaft war zeitweise so gross, dass das FBI befürchtete, Baraka könne sich zum Führer einer panafrikanischen Bewegung in den USA aufschwingen.

http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/kulturzeit/news/174330/index.html

Er war einer der großen Intellektuellen der schwarzen Bürgerrechtsbewegung in den USA der Sechziger und Siebziger – und bis zu seinem Tod eine umstrittene Figur. Der radikale Poet Amiri Baraka starb am Donnerstag mit 79 Jahren.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/amiri-baraka-leroi-jones-schriftsteller-und-black-power-aktivist-gestorben-a-942770.html

Perhaps no writer of the 1960s and 1970s was more radical or polarising than the man formerly known as LeRoi Jones and no one did more to extend the political debates of the civil rights era to the world of the arts.

He inspired a generation of poets, playwrights and musicians and his immersion in spoken word traditions and raw street language anticipated rap, hip-hop and slam poetry.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/09/amir-baraka-playwright-poet-dies

Mr. Baraka was famous as one of the major forces in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which sought to duplicate in fiction, poetry, drama and other mediums the aims of the black power movement in the political arena.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/arts/amiri-baraka-polarizing-poet-and-playwright-dies-at-79.html?_r=1

Critical reception of Baraka’s poetry and writing is a conflict of extremes. Critics within the African-American community compare him to James Baldwin and call Baraka one of the most respected and most widely published Black writers of his generation. Baraka’s brief tenure as Poet Laureate of New Jersey (2002-03), which involved controversy over a public reading of his poem «Somebody Blew Up America?» and accusations of anti-Semitism, brought Baraka’s work a barrage of negative attention from critics, politicians and the general public.Other critics, most notably Jerry Gafio Watts, explain Baraka’s expression of violence, misogyny, homophobia and racism as evidence of psychological projection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka

Mehr:

http://www.amiribaraka.com/

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/baraka/baraka.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka