Ronald L. Fair, novelist and poet, is known for his experimental and versatile literary forms. Although he sustains the naturalistic tradition of Richard Wright by clarifying the impersonal forces that both limit and determine human life, Fair also draws upon African proverb, medieval allegory, and classical epic. Often, his prose work transcends naturalism into surrealism, the unreal world of symbolic dreams. He frequently relies upon both fable and melodrama in order to shape the political novel, as well as the urban one, into absurdist fiction. In employing humor, he manipulates voice tone and viewpoint, and he creates his characterizations with Freudian insight. Fair's skillful twists in style and wordplay embrace folk conventions such as "pretty talk." While he converts racial history into revealing metaphor, he illuminates the ritual of the rural and urban blacks who survive.

The son of Herbert and Beulah Hunt Fair, he was born in...