Arthur Ashe's Cowriter on the Athlete's Posthumous Memoir

Arnold Rampersad edited The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry. His two-volume biography of writer Langston Hughes is now out in a second edition. It was praised by critics as one of the best biographies of a black American writer. He's associate dean for the humanities at Stanford University.

English professor Arnold Rampersad. He's just edited a new edition of the works of black writer Richard Wright. Wright's novel, "Native Son," was a breakthrough in African American literature when it was published in 1940. It also turns out many scenes dealing with the sexual activities of the main character were removed, to make the novel more palatable to Book Month Club subscribers. Those cuts have been restored in this new edition (by The Library of America).

Arnold Rampersad's biography of the African American poet has been called "a literary event." Despite dedicating his writing to the black experience, Hughes grew up in a largely white community. His more radical work didn't find much of an audience, which led to him adopting a more social-realist style later in his career.