Graphic: Karl Gustafson
Rudolph Fisher never got to experience the life of a literary luminary firsthand. A distinguished doctor by day and a creative voice of the Harlem Renaissance by night, the prolific short story writer, musician, and dramatist published just two novels before his untimely death from intestinal cancer in 1934 at the age of 37.
The Conjure-Man Dies (1932), an enthralling whodunnit and Fisher’s final full-length work, could have easily functioned as the young wordsmith’s breakout effort, setting him on a path similar to those of genre giants like Agatha Christie or Chester Himes. Instead, the legacy that underscores HarperCollins’ reprint of the novel last month—as the first-known detective novel penned by an African American author—is a largely posthumous one. The witty thriller, entombed in humor and the spirit of Prohibition-era Harlem, has become a testament to the author’s underexplored potential.