Jean Toomer, Photograph by Marjorie Content, courtesy of Susan Sandberg

In Cane..., a collection of short fiction, poetry, and drama, Jean Toomer explored the hidden depths of the black American experience and produced a mysterious brand of Southern psychological realism that has been matched only in the best work of William Faulkner.-Houston A. Baker, Jr.

Jean Toomer, descended on both sides from racially mixed ancestry, was fascinated by his African-American heritage. In 1921 he traveled to rural Georgia, in part to immerse himself in the black community. Profoundly affected by this experience, Toomer wrote Cane (1923) as a celebration of Southern black culture.
Cane consists of short stories, poetry, and drama. The unifying principle of the novel is its central image, "cane," a symbol for blackness suggesting both the earthy, sensuous sweetness of sugar cane and the burdensome mark of the biblical Cain, which alienated him from the community. Divided into three movements, Cane portrays black experience in the impoverished rural South and in the bourgeois urban North, concluding with the private quest of a young writer--based on Toomer himself--to understand his black identity.
The record of his racial self-discovery, Cane bore tremendous personal significance for Toomer. It is also important as a work of American literature. The leading novel of the Harlem Renaissance, it helped to promote an understanding, among both black and white readers, of the richness and complexity of African-American culture.-