Hansberry, Lorraine

To Be Young, Gifted and Black

In her first play, the now-classic A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry introduced the lives of ordinary African Americans into our national theatrical repertory. Now, Hansberry tells her own life story in an autobiography that rings with the voice of its creator. "Brilliantly alive."--The New York Times.

A Raisin in the Sun (Modern Library)

"Never before, the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.

Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever.  The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun."

"The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times.  "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic."  This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.

A Raisin in the Sun: The Unfilmed Original Screenplay

The Unfilmed Original Screenplay of an American classic.

This is a landmark volume of the epic, original film script written by Lorraine Hansberry, adapted from her stage play. But movie audiences did not know that nearly a third of her powerful screenplay had been cut. This edition restores all of these deletions and delivers the screenplay that is true to Hansberry's vision.

A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun

the hopes and hungers of a young Negro husband and his family

Plays on a Human Theme

To Be Young, Gifted and Black: An Informal Autobiography

To Be Young, Gifted and Black: An Informal Autobiography