In many respects [Black April], Mrs. Peterkin's second published volume of fiction dealing with the negroes in the South, must stand as the most genuinely successful attempt yet made to capture the soul of these people. This book is put down with the feeling that one stands nearer to truth than one has stood before, in a field of fiction the surface of which has been often scratched, and the rich depths seldom upturned.

Mrs. Peterkin makes one singularly happy stroke. There are no white people in this book. From first to last it is the story of the negroes' lives in relation to each other. That is quite a different thing from negro life in its relation to another race, or even with the presence of white people and the existing social system as a background constantly present. It is a device which assists in Mrs. Peterkin's...