University of Minnesota Libraries - Special Collections and Rare Books

Recent Acquisitions for the Givens Collection

Donations from E. Ethelbert Miller

Amiri Baraka/E. Ethelbert Miller Correspondence
August Wilson Materials
Clarence Major/E. Ethelbert Miller Correspondence

Contemporary Titles

Dr. King's Refrigerator and Other Bedtime Stories by Charles Johnson
Like Trees, Walking by Ravi Howard
Right Side of the Wrong Bed by Frederick Smith
The Girl with the Golden Shoes by Colin Channer
Casanegra by Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due, and Stephen Barnes
Dear Chester, Dear John: Letters between Chester Himes and John A. Williams

August Wilson Collection

Collection of published plays, playbills, photographs and posters from the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. Also included is an original manuscript of "Fences", signed by James Earl Jones.

Archives of Penumbra Theatre

The Givens Collection has recently acquired the archives of The Penumbra Theatre Company. The archive includes the historical documentation of the theatre and artistic materials such as photos, playbills, and posters. Once the Penumbra archive is catalogued and processed, it will be available for research and study by the general public as well as University students, faculty and staff.

Charles Johnson/E. Ethelbert Miller Correspondence Collection

Charles Johnson is a writer, cartoonist, and educator. He is a tenured professor of creative writing at the University of Washington in Seattle. Johnson has published several novels, including Middle Passage, which won the National Book Award in 1990. In 1998, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. In 2003, Washington and Lee University established the Charles Johnson Society, which is devoted to studying his works.

E. Ethelbert Miller is a poet, essayist, editor and educator. He has published poetry collections and has edited several anthologies. Miller is a member of the PEN American Center, Associated Writing Program, Institute for Policy Studies, National Writers Union, Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, Alliance of Greater Washington, Community Humanities Council of Washington, DC and is the director of African-American Resource Center at Howard University.

In addition to both being black authors, Johnson and Miller are connected through their shared religion, Buddhism. Their correspondence relates to their artistic and philosophical concerns.