Toomer, Jean, 1894–1967, American writer, b. Washington, D.C., as Nathan Eugene Toomer. A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, he is known for one work, Cane (1923), a collection of stories, poems, and sketches about black life in rural Georgia and the urban North.

Toomer, Jean

orig. Nathan Eugene Toomer

(born Dec. 26, 1894, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died March 30, 1967, Doylestown, Pa.) U.S. poet and novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. He taught briefly before turning to writing. Cane (1923), considered his best work, is an experimental novel that depicts the experience of being black in the U.S.; it had a strong influence on younger black writers. He also wrote for The Dial and other small magazines. He visited the Gurdjieff Institute in France in 1926 and led Gurdjieff groups in Harlem and Chicago. He became a Quaker in 1940. Ambivalent about his mixed racial background and preoccupied with spiritual matters, he avoided race issues in subsequent works.

Toomer, Jean (Eugene Nathan) (1894–1967) poet, writer; born in Washington, D.C. He studied at the University of Wisconsin (1914), and City College, N.Y. (1917), and worked briefly as a superintendent of a black rural school in Georgia (1921). He studied with a mystic in France (1924), lived in Harlem (1925) and Chicago (1926–33), then married and settled in Pennsylvania (1934). An important writer of the Harlem Renaissance, he is best known for Cane (1923), a work combining poetry, fiction, and drama.