Marian Minus
American writer (1914–1972)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mattie Marian Minus (September 4, 1914 – October 1972)[1] was an American writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, especially with writers Dorothy West and Richard Wright.
September 4, 1914
Marian Minus | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mattie Marian Minus September 4, 1914 South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | October 1972 (aged 58) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Partner | Dorothy West |
Early life and education
Minus was born in South Carolina and raised in Dayton, Ohio, the daughter of Laura Whitener Minus and Claude Wellington Minus.[2] Her mother was a seamstress who worked for the WPA; her father was a pharmacist and taught at Wilberforce University. Her maternal grandmother, Laura Lyles, was white, and the model for a character in Dorothy West's 1995 novel The Wedding.[3] Minus won an award for perfect grades in 1932,[4] and graduated at the top of her class at Fisk University in 1935,[5][6] and began graduate studies in anthropology, on a Rosenwald Fund fellowship,[3][7] at the University of Chicago.[2]
At Fisk, Minus was the first woman elected to Sigma Upsilon Pi honor society,[6] and the president of the Alpha Beta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.[8]
Career
In Chicago in the 1930s, Minus became a member of the South Side Writers Group with Richard Wright.[2][9] With Wright and her partner, Dorothy West, she was co-editor of Challenge, a literary magazine,[10] and of its more political successor, New Challenge.[11][12] "The only prejudice editors Dorothy West, Marian Minus, and Richard Wright own to is a distinct anti-fascist prejudice and they mix no words in saying so," noted one reviewer in 1937.[13]
Minus wrote short stories,[14] typed manuscripts for West,[15] and worked for Consumers Union.[7][16] In 1942, she gave an anthropology lecture at the School for Democracy in New York City.[17] She won an award from Simon & Schuster to write a novel, Time is my Enemy, in 1946.[18] In 1958, she became personnel director for Consumers Union, based in Mount Vernon, New York.[3][19]
Publications
- "The Negro as a Consumer" (1937, Opportunity, article)[16]
- "The Fine Line" (1939, short story)[20]
- "Girl, Colored" (1940, The Crisis, short story)[21]
- "Half-Bright" (1940, Opportunity, short story)[22]
- "The Threat to Mr. David" (1947, short story, Woman's Day)[23]
Personal life and legacy
Minus had a longtime personal and professional partnership with writer Dorothy West; they lived together in New York City at the time of the 1940 census, and on Martha's Vineyard.[24][25] In the 1950 census, she was recorded living with her mother in New York City.[26] Later in life she lived with Edna Pemberton.[3] Minus died in 1972, in her fifties.[2]
Her story "Girl, Colored" has been anthologized several times. It was included in Black Women's Blues (1992),[27] Ebony Rising (2004), in an anthology of Harlem Renaissance short fiction,[28] and in a 2011 anthology of stories by Black women in The Crisis.[29]