Claude McKay

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Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet, and a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. In 1919, McKay wrote, “If We Must Die,” one of his best-known works. He composed five novels and several collections of poetry and short stories. His 1922 poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance. By the late 1930s, McKay’s anti-Stalinism isolated him from other Harlem intellectuals, and by 1942, he had converted to Catholicism and left Harlem, working for a Catholic organization until his death.