About this item

A unique crime classic: the very first detective novel written by an African-American, set in 1930s New York with only Black characters.When the body of N'Gana Frimbo, the African conjure-man, is discovered in his consultation room, Perry Dart, one of Harlem's ten Black police detectives, is called in to investigate. Together with Dr Archer, a physician from across the street, Dart is determined to solve the baffling mystery, helped and hindered by Bubber Brown and Jinx Jenkins, local boys keen to clear themselves of suspicion of murder and undertake their own investigations.The Conjure-Man Dies was the very first detective novel written by an African-American. A distinguished doctor and accomplished musician and dramatist, Rudolph Fisher was one of the principal writers of the Harlem Renaissance, but died in 1934 aged only 37.



About the Author

Rudolph Fisher

Born in Washington, DC in the late nineteenth century, Fisher grew up in Providence, Rhode Island graduating from Classical High School and attending Brown University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Brown in 1919, where he delivered the valedictory address, and received a Master of Arts a year later. [citation needed] He went on to attend Howard University Medical School and graduated in 1924. Fisher came to New York City in 1925 to take up a fellowship at College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, during which time he published two scientific articles of his research on treating bacteriophage viruses with ultraviolet light. Fisher married Jane Ryder in 1925, and they had one son, Hugh, who was born in 1926. After his fellowship ended, Fisher had a private practice on Long Island. In 1930, he became superintendent of International Hospital, a black-owned private hospital on Seventh Avenue in Harlem, but the hospital went bankrupt in October 1931. Fisher died after unsuccessful abdominal surgery in 1934 at the age of 37.



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