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* In Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “Remember me,” some of the final words of Hamlet’s father to his son. Another relevant reference here is Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten (New York: Vintage, 2002).

* Richard Wright was closely watched by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Given his political positions and his works, he was deemed subversive. In 1947, great admirers of Wright, Sartre and Beauvoir helped him and his family settle in Paris where he lived in exile until his mysterious death in 1960.