SOURCE: Roy, Darlene. “Henry Dumas—Master Storyteller.” Black American Literature Forum 22, no. 2 (summer 1988): 343-45.

In the following essay, Roy offers a brief evaluation of the black experience as reflected in Henry Dumas's Ark of Bones and Other Stories.

Reading Ark of Bones and Other Stories by Henry Dumas makes me feel recurrently grateful at being allowed a private peek into his personal perception of the Black Experience. His rich application of imagery and symbolism is reflected in such universal conflicts as male/female, good/evil, progress/stagnation, racial separation/racial harmony, and labor/education; or is developed through his use of our time-honored beliefs, customs, and traditions, such as the rites of passage; or is grounded in our fascination with the wonders of nature like rivers, trees, etc. Dumas uses this variegated spool of symbolic and mythological threads to weave the text of his emotionally charged and philosophically...