Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is one of a number of young black critics who in recent years have set themselves the tasks of redrawing the lines of Afro-American literary history and of redefining the nature of literary history itself. To this ambitious project Gates brings a personal and scholarly awareness of the continuity between African and Afro-American cultures that is valuable because it is not generally shared by his colleagues in the venture. His work attempts to outline and explore an indigenous interpretive system that would be analogous to those of the modern Western world but at the same time specific to African and Afro-American modes of expression and cultural traditions. Given his relative youth, the ambitiousness of his program, and the seemingly inexhaustible energy that he brings to it, Gates can be expected to be a central figure on the critical/cultural scene for decades to come...