From Deseret News archives:
Black writer had S.L. connection
"The Collected Writings of Wallace Thurman" is of particular local interest since Thurman, a novelist, playwright, editor and critic, was a native son.
Born in Salt Lake City in 1902, Thurman was dead of tuberculosis by 1934. Yet he left a huge literary legacy that, until now, has been largely unknown to the majority of readers.
He was generally considered the leader of what is called the Harlem Renaissance, a group of young artists and intellectuals that included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Bennett and Aaron Douglas. In a letter to his friend Hughes, Thurman wrote: "Lapses in grammar are certainly to be deplored, but like you, school grammar had no effect upon me whatsoever. Consequently I admit marring what might be good by frequent and really inexcusable gaucheries. . . . I'm hell on bluepenciling the work of others, but much too soft with myself. Auto-intoxication I suppose."
It's unclear how Thurman's parents, Beulah and Oscar Thurman, ended up in Salt Lake City, but his father abandoned his family when Wallace was only a month old. Then Beulah moved him to Boise when he was only 6. His grandmother, Emma Jackson ("Ma Jack") was an active member of the Calvary Baptist Church from its inception in 1896. Beulah led a highly transient life from 1908 on, so she and young "Wally" often returned to spend time with "Ma Jack."
Besides family instability, Thurman suffered from a variety of illnesses during his growing years, including flu (during the 1918 epidemic) and "persistent heart attacks." During his illnesses, he became a voracious reader and wrote poetry about Gypsies, hell, heaven, love and suicide. His reading included Plato, Aristotle, da Stendhal, Spencer, Ibsen, Freud and other classics.
While enrolled in pre-med at the University of Utah, Thurman was the victim of a nervous breakdown. To recover his health, he moved to Los Angeles, where he took journalism classes and tried unsuccessfully to start a writer's community.
In his early 20s, he ended up in Harlem, where he came into his own and was characterized by his peers as radical, brilliant and bisexual. He published a variety of articles in most of the intellectual journals of the day, i.e. The New Republic, The Independent and American Monthly.
Dorothy West remembered Thurman as "a slight man, nearly Black boy, with the most agreeable smile in Harlem and a rich infectious laugh. His voice was without accent, deep and resonant; it was the most memorable thing about him welling out of his frail body and wasting its richness in unprintable recountings."
